


Gone

by SassyUnicorn7



Series: Gauntlets and Greaves II [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama & Romance, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2018-12-23 06:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11984163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassyUnicorn7/pseuds/SassyUnicorn7
Summary: A month has passed since Mercury disappeared, leaving his scroll behind with the message “Wait for me,” typed onto the home screen.  Although her friends try to convince her to move on and let Mercury go, Yang refuses to give up so easily.  She doesn’t need a new man to solve her problems; she needs a new mission.  That’s exactly why she agrees to accompany an enigmatic nine-year-old named Mavros and help him find his missing brother, secretly hoping she’ll find her missing person while in search of her young client’s.





	1. Girls Night Out

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Confidential](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6128884) by [anawitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anawitch/pseuds/anawitch). 



> So it looks like my work lived up to its title, as it was "gone" from Archive of Our Own for a few hours after I accidentally deleted it while editing it ("^^)> Good news is it's back AND edited!
> 
> This is the second story in my Gauntlets and Greaves II series, which is actually a sequel to ANOTHER Gauntlets and Greaves series by a talented writer called anawitch! Technically, you don't have to read the previous works to understand what's going on... but you'd get way more references if you did! In true Shia Labeouf fashion, do it! (e_O)

It was a cold and crowded night at the most popular club in Atlas. A line of stylish people wrapped around the brightly lit street corner as pulsing dance music sounded through the walls, growing louder every time the ornate double doors opened for those lucky enough to be granted entry by the buff and bald bouncers. Had Yang not been best friends with a Schnee Dust Company heiress, she would’ve been stuck outside enduring the chilling wind along with the rest of the kingdom’s party people. But with rich friends came awesome perks, and instant access to the nicest VIP section in a happening nightclub with fancy, complimentary drinks were just part of the package.

“To nipples!” Yang tastelessly toasted, raising her hot pink martini glass up above her head. “Because without them, boobs would have no point.”

Weiss, Blake, Nora, and Ruby all laughed and raised their array of colorful beverages to clink against Yang’s. “To nipples!” they cheered. Weiss and Blake sipped. Nora and Ruby slurped. Yang downed her entire cocktail in one go.

“Easy there, killer,” Blake said after watching Yang drain every last drop of her electrifyingly pink drink. “We’ve got all night. A little pacing goes a long way.”

“So does a little alcohol,” Yang said with raised eyebrows as she set the empty glass on the sheen block of black marble that was their table.

“So does a little alcohol poisoning,” Weiss mentioned before taking another refined sip of her very full drink.

Yang lounged back against the soft, black velvet of their curved couch. “You girls are no fun tonight,” she said, readjusting the hem of her yellow satin dress as she crossed her legs at the knees. “We hardly ever have meet ups like these anymore. What’s wrong with getting a little tipsy?”

“What the hell… I’m with Yang! Let’s have a damn good time tonight!” Nora declared. She started chugging her mint green drink so fast she almost inhaled the tiny umbrella that came with it.

“Yeah!” Yang shouted, high-fiving Nora as soon as the rim of her glass left her lips. Her lilac eyes caught sight of a passing waiter and gestured for him to bring them another round.

“The fact that we hardly convene like this anymore shouldn’t be an excuse to get so inebriated we won’t be able to remember it. If anything, it should be the complete opposite,” Weiss said. She narrowed her icy blue eyes at Yang. “If this is about _him—_ ”

Ruby cleared her throat, furrowed her brow, and pointedly shook her head at the posh princess. Weiss took the hint and resumed sipping her peachy cocktail in a dainty fashion, but the damage was already done. Yang’s attempt to have one full night where she didn’t once think about Mercury was ruined with five small words from one big mouth.

She wasn’t too mad about it, though. Part of her knew he would’ve snuck into her head one way or another. He always did. Only a month had passed since he left her, so time had done little to heal the pangs she felt when he crossed her mind. Yang was as concerned as she was irked for feeling any kind of concern over him in the first place, but Ruby had caught her looking through the pictures of him she had saved on her scroll one too many times to pretend like she didn’t care.

Yang and Mercury’s history was filled with meetings and partings. That’s all they used to do. They would meet, they would fuck, they would part, and they would go on living their separate lives. It was a cycle that worked fine for both of them, but this parting was different from all the others. This time, Mercury left his scroll behind and went in search of a man who could very well kill him. This time, Yang—the spokeswoman of single ladies, the queen of hookups and friends with benefits—had come to terms with the fact that she was in love. This time, not knowing Mercury’s whereabouts or condition physically and mentally made her ache. But what could she do? Other than abide by Mercury’s request.

**WAIT FOR ME.**

Yang blew a loose strand of her golden hair out of her face as she recalled the succinct message she found on his scroll’s home screen the day he disappeared. _What makes him so sure I will?_ she bitterly thought to herself.

Just then, a group of good-looking guys walked by their private nook of the club. One glanced her way, liked what he saw, and gestured for her to call him. Yang rolled her eyes in response, pausing in the act when she realized what she was doing.

_That’s what makes him so sure I will, _she concluded with a sigh. Other guys just didn’t cut it anymore.__

____

__

“Well, I’m simply glad to be back together with all of you, no matter what percentage our alcoholic intake might reach,” Blake said. Yang looked her faunus friend in her catlike eyes and shared a smile. Blake had a knack for knowing just what to say to put Yang in a better mood—then again Yang tended to have that same affect on her. The magic of friendship at its finest.

“Your beverages, ladies,” the waiter said, offering Nora and Yang the vibrant pink and green concoctions off of his round tray.

Nora took the paper umbrella out of her drink before she had another chance to accidentally ingest it and stuck it in her hair. “Just you watch,” she said loudly, eyeing all of her friends. “By the end of the night, everyone is going to have umbrellas in their hair just because of how cool I make it look!”

Yang shrugged and sampled her new drink, choosing to take it a little slower while still retaining every intention of getting absolutely white-girl wasted. “Sounds like fun to me,” she said.

Two hours later, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, and Nora were all on the dance floor, laughing like idiots, dancing like fools, and doing their best to keep the multitude of paper umbrellas poking out of their heads in place. Yang was having such a good time that she resisted nature’s call for over half an hour. When Blake told her she needed a bathroom break, Yang finally admitted she did, too, and the pair excused themselves to the ladies’ room.

“Go break the seal!” Nora shouted after them as they left the dance floor. “Smash that seal in half like the powerhouse Huntresses you are! Make that seal your bitch!”

Yang was still laughing about Nora’s outburst by the time she was washing her hands. When she caught sight of her fuzzy reflection in the gilded mirror above the sink, she was struck by a sudden dizzy spell and grabbed at the rounded rim of the basin to steady herself. Her muscle memory recalled a time she was in a similar position, shoved up against a sink in a handicap bathroom and bent over its faucets while Mercury held her from behind. The memory was so strong she could feel his fingers pressing into her skin. The ghostlike sensation of Mercury’s hands was soon overpowered by the pang in her chest that always seemed to accompany these random flashbacks. She winced as the abrupt spasm came and went, gripping the edge of the sink tighter as she regained what little focus her drunken state would allow her.

“Why…?” she asked as she gazed back at the three Yangs circling around in the mirror. “Why do I keep remembering things like that?”

She felt another stitch of pain, but this time it sprang from her stomach. She released one hand from the sink to clutch at her gut as the pain intensified, letting out a raucous moan of discomfort in the process.

Yang felt Blake’s hands close around her shoulders. “Are you okay?” her worried friend asked.

Yang shut her eyes and shook her head, detaching all but one of the colorful umbrellas decorating her long blond locks. “Gonna hurl,” she croaked before making a beeline back to the stall. She puked as soon as her mouth was in range of the toilet. Feebly, she clung to the porcelain throne while Blake held back her hair.

“I knew we shouldn’t have done that last shot,” Blake said over the echo of Yang’s hacking coughs into the toilet bowl.

“Ugh… You said that about the last five,” Yang muttered.

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

Yang wiped the drool from her bottom lip on the back of her hand. “I think I’m feeling better,” she said as she awkwardly tried to get to her feet. Blake helped her manage.

“Maybe let’s switch to water?” Blake suggested.

Yang nodded. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

Yang was happy to see the rest of the girls missing from the dance floor by the time they emerged from the bathroom. She was feeling much too nauseous to get jiggy with it any longer. They stopped by the downstairs bar to order two tall waters before heading upstairs to their VIP section. When they stepped into view, Yang rubbed her eyes to make sure her distorted vision wasn’t deceiving her. There was an extra friend on the black velvet couch.

“Em!” Yang yelled, throwing her arms in the air.

Emerald stood from the couch and received the full brunt of Yang’s running hug, as well as a splash of ice-cold water that came flying out of her plastic cup upon impact. “Good to see you, Yang,” she said.

“When did you get here?” Yang asked in pure bewilderment as she released her. “I didn’t realize you were in Atlas. I would’ve contacted you sooner.”

“No worries. I actually just arrived. I wasn’t planning on coming up north… but something came up,” Emerald replied.

“A job?” Yang guessed as she, Emerald, and Blake took seats next to Ruby, Weiss, and Nora around the c-shaped couch.

“We’ll go with that,” Emerald said.

Yang couldn’t tell if she was too drunk to understand that answer, or if it was just really vague.

“You actually came at a perfect time, Emerald,” Weiss announced. Her cheeks and chest were much rosier than usual, but her formal tone was evident even in her intoxicated state. “We were discussing why bad boys are fun to play with, but not relationship material.”

Yang’s smile instantly drooped into a frown. “We were discussing what?”

“Yang, hear me out,” Weiss said. “Look. I get it. You’re young. You’re adventurous. You’re a thrill seeker. You look danger in the eye and laugh, and bad boys definitely entertain those kinds of notions. But when you’re thinking of settling down and starting a family, that’s when you need to stop and ask yourself is raising a child something you really want to do with the same guy that likes—oh I don’ know… jumping off buildings and setting entire villages on fire?”

“He’s never set a village on fire! Just his house!” Yang argued. She covered her mouth with her hand when she realized she just revealed a small portion of a very big secret Mercury had confided to her. Luckily, no one seemed to notice.

“I don’t care what that delinquent does,” Weiss deadpanned. “The point is his behavior is far from the kind of conduct a stable relationship requires, and not taking that into consideration now might cause you seriously severe problems in the future. Blake knows what I’m talking about!”

Blake choked on her water at the mention of her name. “Me?”

Weiss nodded. “Tell Yang the difference between dating Adam and dating Sun.”

Blake shifted uneasily in her seat. “I don’t think that has anything to do with—”

“Of course it does!” Weiss snapped. “We learn from every relationship we have, and the most rewarding part of learning is disclosing our knowledge to others so that they might refrain from making the same grievous mistakes we did! So look your friend in the eyes and tell her why dating someone like Sun is a much healthier choice than dating someone like Adam! Tell her to find a good guy and drop the bad boy!”

Yang had heard of slaphappy drunks, belligerent drunks, and emotional drunks, but Weiss was the first bossy drunk she’d ever encountered. She looked from Weiss’s reddened yet determined expression to Blake’s pale, blank face.

“Well,” Blake began. “I wasn’t really attracted to Adam because he was a thrill seeker or an adventurer. If anything, Sun is more of the thrill-seeking, adventuring type. He always wants to try new foods or go see new movies—always looking for something fresh and exciting to do. Adam was just more dangerous, I guess. His ideals bordered brilliance and insanity too often for me to go along with them. The more he changed—the more radical and cutthroat he became—the more I distanced myself. So in reality, his bad boy side didn’t turn me on. It turned me away.”

“That’s because you were smart enough to see the light for yourself and get out while you could,” Weiss said proudly. “Yang is still wearing those rose colored glasses, so she can’t see clearly.”

“I can see just fine!” Yang claimed as her vision went in and out of focus. She meant metaphorically, not literally. Her glassy eyes shot to Emerald. “Em, tell them that Mercury isn’t as bad as they think.”

Emerald scrunched her nose as she considered. “I don’t know if I can. He leaves the toilet seat up a lot… he never takes out the trash… and if I had a Lien for every time he showed up late, I’d have enough to buy this night club and still take you all out for ice cream.”

“Oooh. Ice cream sounds yummy! Can we get some?” Ruby asked, leaning forward to look at Emerald with stars in her eyes. If Weiss was the bossy drunk, Ruby was the cutesy one. Yang and Emerald both smiled at her sister’s adorableness.

“Maybe,” Emerald mused. “But not until Yang answers Weiss’s question.”

Yang knit her eyebrows together in confusion. “Weiss had a question?”

“I had a question?” Weiss asked almost simultaneous with Yang.

Emerald smirked. “Well, yeah. She basically wants to know what you see in Mercury to make you think he’s relationship material. What makes him a Sun, not an Adam?”

Yang took a moment to mull that over. She wanted to answer honestly, but she also wanted to shut Weiss up for the rest of the night. Was there a way to do both?

“Mercury might not be as clean-cut as Neptune,” Yang said, looking to Weiss, “as composed as Ren,” she continued, glancing at Nora, “or as friendly as Sun,” she added as her eyes traveled to Blake, “but that doesn’t make him a bad guy. Sure, we don’t always see eye-to-eye, but I like to think that’s a good thing because we wind up meeting each other halfway. We help one another grow by compromising, and mutual growth is important for any relationship. Blake said she didn’t like the person she watched Adam change into, but I love seeing Mercury change because it’s always for the better. He’s not the same person he was six years ago, and he’s given me no reason to think he’d ever regress back to his former self. If anything, he cares more about me than I do him. He’s not like Adam, and he’s certainly not like Sun. He’s not like Neptune or Ren, either. He’s himself, and I wouldn’t want him any other way.”

Yang gauged her friends’ reactions and saw all of them smiling, save for the Ice Queen, of course.

“I need another drink…” Weiss said with a sigh.

Yang exchanged amused looks with Emerald. Mission accomplished.

“I just think,” Weiss added after a blissful yet much too brief silence. Yang smacked her palm to her forehead. Mission _not_ accomplished. “I just think,” Miss Prim and Proper repeated, “since I have more success and experience in the relationship department, you should value my insight a little more.”

Yang cocked an eyebrow. “And what exactly makes YOU the love expert?” she challenged.

Weiss thrust her left hand in Yang’s face, her perfectly manicured fingernails nearly scraping Yang’s nose. Somewhat cross-eyed, Yang fixated on the sparkling gemstone adorning a very important finger.

“Oh my god. Oh my god!” Yang exclaimed, taking Weiss’s hand in hers and lowering it to get a better look at the shiny diamond ring. “You’re engaged?!”

Weiss smiled. “Took you long enough to notice.”

The girls’ voices blended together in a chorus of surprised squeals, gasps, and words of congratulations as they all gathered around to admire the expensive-looking rock.

“I can’t believe Neptune proposed!” Ruby cried.

“I can. You two have been into each other since the day you met,” Nora said.

“You’re one to talk,” Yang teased, elbowing Nora in the ribs. “Aren’t you and Ren childhood friends? You two have known each other longer than anybody.”

Nora laughed nervously. “Psh. Don’t be silly. Just because we were together all that time doesn’t mean we were together-together. We’ve only been _together_ -together for about five and a half years now.”

Yang pointed to the naked ring finger on her human hand. “That sounds like more than enough time to me. Maybe the love expert can offer you some advice.” Yang nodded her head to Weiss and winked.

“All relationships have different pacing,” Weiss said, dutifully answering to her new title. “Just because Neptune and I have progressed forward doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you and Ren waiting, Nora. You’re fine. _You,_ on the other hand,” she added, darting her eyes to Yang and pointing an accusatory finger, “need to put the brakes on your current crisis and accelerate with someone new.”

Yang averted her eyes and sucked on the ice in her water. Talking to Weiss now was like talking to a brick wall—except the brick wall would’ve been kind enough not to dis her boyfriend and life choices.

“I’m serious,” Weiss blabbered on. “I’ll even introduce you to some upstanding gentlemen. Neptune has a handful of friends that are going to be his groomsmen, some of which just so happen to be single. Since all of you ladies are officially my bridesmaids, I could easily—”

“We’re going to be your bridesmaids?!” Ruby eagerly interrupted.

“Er—well, obviously. Who else would I pick?”

Ruby squeaked in delight. “Eeeeee! I’ve never been a bridesmaid before! This is so exciting! Ooh, ooh! Since I’m your bestie, that means I’m the maid of honor, right?”

Weiss shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ruby, that role belongs to my sister.” The look of dejection on Ruby’s face was absolutely heart wrenching. Even Weiss’s cold heart was defrosted by it. “How about I let you hold the bouquet and fix the train of my dress at the alter? You can help plan the bachelorette party, too!” Weiss suggested.

That idea perked Ruby right up. “Okay!” she happily agreed.

Taking advantage of the change of topic, Yang excused herself and stepped outside onto the club’s balcony that overlooked the busy city street. The sounds of car engines humming by along with the occasional honks blended in with the techno track blaring through the outdoor speakers. Giant searchlights shined up into the sky from the club’s entrance, illuminating the gray clouds overhead. Yang rested her elbows on the stone railing, breathing in the heavy scents of food carts, exhaust fumes, and city life.

 _“Try this,”_ Yang heard the distant echo of Mercury's voice call in her head.

A memory of the two of them stopping at a taco truck after an unexpected encounter filled her mind. They had already done the deed in a nearby alleyway, working up both of their appetites in the process.

“What is it?” Yang asked, eyeing the suspicious hunk of food impaled by the small wooden rod Mercury handed to her.

“It’s fried meat on a stick. It’s fucking delicious! Here, try dipping it in this sauce,” Mercury said, handing her a cup full of some burnt orange condiment. The smile he wore as he spoke negated the apprehension she felt about eating the foreign meal. She gingerly dipped and took a bite.

“It’s good,” she admitted while still chewing. “Crunchy and meaty. And the sauce is nice and tangy. I like it!”

Mercury was still smiling, but the look in his eyes shifted. Yang couldn’t place what it was, but it made him seem more approachable—more genuine. “Believe it or not, I pay attention to the things you like and the things you don’t. You’ve just gotta trust me sometimes, Blondie.”

“I trust you,” Yang said. She didn’t realize she was speaking audibly until she heard a voice beside her respond.

“Good to know,” Emerald said, her arms resting on the railing the same way Yang’s were.

Yang gasped, jumping back in surprise. “Em! How long have you been there?” she asked. She clutched at her chest when she felt the familiar sharp pain starting to build.

Emerald chuckled at Yang’s skittishness. “Long enough to guess who you were really talking to,” she said.

Yang felt her face get warmer and the pang in her chest get sharper. “Yeah, well…” she said, taking deep breaths to abate the pain, “he’s not here to hear me. So what does it matter?”

Emerald looked up at the night sky, avoiding Yang’s gaze. “You know why he left without telling you anything, right?” she asked.

“That doesn’t excuse him for not even giving me the chance to advise him, or join him, or—”

“Stop him?” Emerald finished for her, raising an eyebrow in Yang’s direction.

Yang pursed her lips and stayed silent until the pain in her chest subsided. “I wouldn’t have stopped him,” she said, assuming a more relaxed posture and gazing out at the city once more. “Not if it was something he absolutely had to do. I just hate how quick he was to shut me out. It was so easy for him.”

“You don’t know that,” Emerald said.

“I do know that! It was such a spur of the moment decision! One minute we were holding each other in my bed, the next I was waking up to and empty space beside me. Do you know how unsettling that is?”

Emerald twisted her face into a playfully pensive expression. “Can’t say that I do,” she admitted.

“Well, it sucks,” Yang said huffily. “And the worst part is, he knows I have abandonment issues. He knows how much it hurt me when I found out about my real mom. And then he goes and rubs salt in the open wound by leaving his scroll behind so I _know_ I have no way of contacting him or finding out where he is. He’s such a jerk!”

“Well, you’re wrong about one of those things,” Emerald casually said.

Yang turned to face her. “What do you mean?”

“You do have a way to find out where he is.” Emerald reached her hand into her back pocket and retrieved a folded envelope with a broken seal. “You didn’t think I came here because Weiss wanted me to be one of her bridesmaids, did you?”

Yang’s eyes honed in on the creased piece of paper. “A letter? From…” She reached a hand out to take it, but the trained thief easily weaved her hand out of Yang’s grasp. A surge of anger suddenly rushed through Yang. She wasn’t in the mood to play games, especially if that really was a letter from Mercury. “What gives?” she demanded.

“I’ll let you read it,” Emerald assured her, “so long as you agree not to follow after him.”

Yang felt her heart leap. “It’s really from Mercury? And it says where he is?”

Emerald crossed her arms in front of her, keeping the envelope securely pinched between two fingers. “Possibly. Whatever it says, you have to promise me you won’t act on it. I didn’t have to bring this to you. Hell, I traveled to an entirely different kingdom.”

“Then why did you? Why go through all that trouble for one measly letter that wasn’t even meant for me?”

Emerald hesitated, no doubt debating how honest she was willing to be with herself, let alone Yang. “Because of how you reacted to Weiss back in there and defended your relationship with Mercury,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the suite. “I know Mercury would’ve said the exact same things… just probably with a little more profanity.”

Yang laughed. She wasn’t wrong.

“I’ve never been in love,” Emerald continued, “but I imagine it can be pretty tough. Mercury is my,” she paused as the next word formed in her mouth, _“friend,”_ she strained to say, “and as weird as it is to admit it, so are you. I know you’ve been worried. That’s why I’m hoping this will help.” She waved the envelope still pinched between her fingers. “So what’s it gonna be, tough girl?”

Yang took a deep breath and looked unwaveringly in Emerald’s vermillion eyes. “I promise I won’t go after him.”

Emerald raised her eyebrows. “You swear?”

“What? You want me to sing it?! I swear! Geez…”

A faint smile tugged at Emerald’s mouth as she extended the unsealed envelope to Yang. With alcohol infused butterflies fluttering wildly in her tummy, Yang accepted the precious paper and hastily opened it.

**_Dear Emerald,_ **

**_Sorry I didn’t get a chance to see you before I left. Not sure how you’re getting by without me, but you’ve always been a survivor. You’ll do okay._ **

**_I managed to find a lead about my uncle—you know, the douchebag we fought a few weeks back? Looks like he’s been operating in and out of northern Mistral for a few years now, at least according to my source. It’s not a fight I’m looking forward to, but it’s a score that needs settling. Pray for me? ;)_ **

**_Anyway, I probably won’t be sending too many more of these. Just wanted to drop a line and be… what’s that word? Nise? Am I spelling that right?_ **

**_Hope you’re finding enough solo jobs to keep your wallet stacked. If you see Yang, tell her… On second thought, don’t tell her anything. I’ll tell her myself when I see her again._ **

**_Later,_ **

**_Merc_ **

**_P.S. The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful!_ **

Yang read the letter three full times before returning it to its proper recipient.

 _So, he’s in Mistral,_ she thought with a sly smile.

“Stop it,” Emerald said.

Yang blinked. “Stop what?”

“Stop thinking about going after him. You already swore you wouldn’t.”

“You can’t show me something like that and then expect me to not even _think_ about going after him. I promised I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t say anything about _thinking_ about doing it!”

Emerald shook her head and stuffed the letter back in her pocket. “I knew I shouldn’t have shown it to you…”

“What’s the big deal? Why is this something he has to do alone? Why not go and help him? You’ve done it before!”

“Because it’s his choice, not ours,” Emerald said firmly, serving to sober Yang far better than the water still clasped in her hand. “It’s _his_ past, it’s _his_ choice. He chose to leave us behind, so we must choose to accept it.”

A sudden realization occurred to Yang as she held Emerald’s gaze. “You’re just as upset about him leaving as I am, aren’t you?”

Emerald snorted and broke eye contact. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not upset. Not yet.” She shot Yang a glare that froze her where she stood. “But I might be if you go back on your word. If I can’t follow him, neither can you, you got that?”

Yang nodded. “I got it.”

Emerald took one last look at the city of Atlas before putting a hand on Yang’s shoulder and turning them around. “C’mon. Tonight was supposed to be fun, right? So let’s go have some.”

Yang smiled and allowed Emerald to lead her inside. As they walked, Yang’s hand found its way to the small of Emerald’s back while her eye found its way to the corner of the letter sticking out of her pocket.

 _No harm in thinking about it,_ Yang thought to herself. _No harm at all…_


	2. The Best Advice

It was close to midnight by the time Emerald and Yang made it back to the VIP section. Yang immediately noticed their group had doubled in size and, for a moment, thought they accidentally stumbled into the wrong part of the club. Before she could U-turn and make for the opposite direction, she recognized the bright neon blue hair of Neptune Vasilias.

“Neptune! Hey!” Yang greeted, embracing her longtime friend. “Congratulations on your engagement. You did a great job picking out the ring!”

“Thanks,” Neptune said, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I didn’t really have much of a choice. Weiss said she’d only let me propose once, and if everything wasn’t perfect, she’d turn me down flat.”

Yang looked to Weiss who was standing with her arm wrapped around Neptune’s waist, smiling like an angel; a really pink-faced angel. If Weiss thought reigning over her relationship like that was healthy, Yang felt a million times better for not agreeing with her ‘insight.’ That wasn’t to say Weiss was wrong. Such thinking was just wrong for Yang.

“Yo, Yang! Sup?” a familiar voice called. Yang turned to see Sun Wukong’s sunny expression and ripped abdomen. Yang had to admit, if her abs looked that good, she’d show them off all the time, too.

“Sun! Good to see you!” Yang said. She proceeded to greet Scarlet, Sage, and Ren before Weiss presented her to a new face in the group.

“Yang, this is Azure, Neptune’s cousin,” Weiss said as a means of introduction.

Azure was a lean yet muscular young man similar in build and looks to his cousin. The biggest difference was the bright blue ponytail he had tied just above his neck. Azure’s hair was three times longer than Neptune’s, but equally as blue.

“Charmed,” Yang said, offering Azure the tips of her fingers and curtseying while holding out her dress. She was trying to mock how proper Weiss was, but Weiss was too drunk to notice and took it as Yang actually trying to be polite.

“Azure is a Hunter graduate from right here in Atlas. Top of his class and president of the tactical team, meaning he’s just as smart as he is strong.”

Azure laughed. It was a really great laugh, actually. “That’s quite enough, Weiss. You’re putting me up on this huge pedestal.”

“I’m just giving credit where credit is due,” Weiss said innocently. “Yang is quite the Huntress, herself. Why don’t I get both of you some cocktails and you two talk about your latest missions?” The conspicuous matchmaker ushered them over to the velvet couch and disappeared to retrieve their promised drinks.

“Why do I suddenly feel very awkward?” Yang asked when Weiss was out of earshot.

Azure laughed that same great laugh again. “Ah, because it’s pretty clear my cousin’s fiancée is trying to hook us up?”

“Gah, fiancée,” Yang said, shaking her head in amazement. “It feels like we’re too young to be getting married, but we’re actually at that ripe age, huh?”

Azure shrugged. “I think it depends on the person. I know, being in the field of work I am, I won’t be ready to settle down until I’m past my Hunter prime.”

Yang fervently nodded. “Me, too! I know my mom had me pretty young, and my stepmom was the same, but I don’t even want to think about kids until I have time to raise them. There’s so much more I can do in the field right now. Better to use my youth to fight monsters than raise them.”

“You think kids are little monsters?” Azure asked with a grin that nearly sparkled.

Yang grimaced. “I guess ‘little monsters’ is a little harsh. What about rug rats?”

Maintaining his grin, Azure shook his head. “Still sounds like something I’d aim an arrow at.”

“So you’re an archer, huh?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“What does your bow change into?”

“A double-bladed sword that can attach to my forearm and fire dust bullets.”

“It’s a gun, too?”

“I’d like to meet a Hunter who DOESN’T have a gun built into his weapon!”

They both laughed, just in time for Weiss to arrive with two very tall margaritas.

“Glad to see you two are having fun,” Weiss said so sweetly she might as well have been using her singing voice.

“You said it was something Yang did best,” Azure reminded her as she handed them their drinks.

“I do love being right,” Weiss confessed with a satisfied sigh, trailing her finger along the back of the couch before slipping away and leaving the two of them to their own devices.

Yang and Azure talked until it was closing time—laughing and chatting like it was second nature. Yang couldn’t deny how much she enjoyed Azure’s company, but she also couldn’t deny the void she felt when she hypothetically entertained the idea of dating him. He was literally the most perfect guy she had ever met—smart, funny, noble, top of his class, clean as a whistle, physically fit with a face that looked like it could’ve been carved by the gods—but he wasn’t Mercury. She should’ve been fawning over this guy, but part of what made it so easy for her to talk to Azure was that she wasn’t self-conscious in the slightest. If he liked her, great. If he didn’t, so what? Mercury may have left his scroll with Yang, but he’d unknowingly exchanged it for something far more valuable: Yang’s heart.

 _A scroll for a heart… Not a very fair trade,_ Yang thought as Azure helped escort her out of the club.

“So, you planning on staying in Atlas for a while?” Azure asked when they made it to the sidewalk with the rest of the group.

Yang shook her head. “Not really. Gotta get back to my dad. And my dog.”

“A family girl who loves animals? Now I definitely have to get your number,” Azure said. He reached in Yang’s purse and pulled out a scroll, only it wasn’t hers. A number of wrinkles formed on his perfectly sized forehead when he read the words that appeared on the device’s home screen. “Wait for me?”

Yang’s eyes widened as she snatched the scroll from Azure’s hand. “Uh, right. That’s actually… my boyfriend’s.”

Azure clicked his tongue. “I was wondering when you were going to bring him up.”

Yang looked at Azure in confusion. “You knew?”

“Well, yeah. Weiss told me a lot about you, including the fact that you’re dating some scuzzball who doesn’t deserve you.”

Yang took a step away from Azure. “You’ve never even met him.”

“And from what I’ve heard, I’d say that’s definitely a good thing. There are some people in this world you don’t need to meet. I’m sorry you weren’t as fortunate.”

Yang stuffed Mercury’s scroll in her purse and snapped it shut with a flick of her wrist. “You know what? You’re right. It is a good thing you haven’t met him. Because if he were here right now, he’d pummel your straight-A ass so hard, you’d bleed as blue as your hair and lose any and all hope of ever having future _rug rats_ of your own. That is if you even have what it takes to produce them in the first place.”

Azure scoffed. “You’ve really got a thing for this loser, don’t you?” he asked. “Man… I was gonna say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone…”

“The only thing you’re getting under is my skin,” Yang said with a scowl. “So I suggest you move along before I move you myself.”

“Tch, whatever you say. Your loss.”

Azure stuffed his hands in the pockets of his slacks and strode over to stand with his bros. Yang crossed her arms in front of her chest and ran her hands up and down her bare biceps in an attempt to get warm. She was surprised her temper wasn’t doing more to heat her body—it was fueling a fire in her chest.

A moment later, her sister was at her side. “What was that about?” Ruby asked.

“Nothing,” Yang said through chattering teeth. “I just wanna get back to the Schnee estate and sleep off this hangover I know I’m going to have. I drank nothing but sweet stuff all night.”

Ruby nodded and the pair of siblings stood in silence until the stretch limousine pulled up to their curb.

“You know, I’m glad you turned him down,” Ruby said while they were still far enough away from everyone else to maintain a private conversation. “Weiss might not like Mercury, but I don’t think the opinion of someone who has barely spent any time with him counts for much. I know she’s got a successful relationship or whatever, but so do you. Do you know how many girls would kill to be able to turn a bad boy good? What you and Mercury have is special, Yang. So don’t let people like Weiss or Azure tell you differently. They don’t need to know what you and Mercury have—only you do.”

Yang wasn’t sure why, but tears had begun to pool in her eyes. The brimming water felt like it might freeze in the cool night air before it had a chance to run its course down her face. “If Mercury and I are the only ones who need to know what we have, then why does it sound like you do, too?” Yang asked with a smile she couldn’t hide.

“Love isn’t something you tell people you’re in. It’s something they can tell for themselves,” Ruby said. Ruby wasn’t just cute when she drank; she was a sage.

“Ruby! Yang! What’s the hold up?” Blake called from the open door of the limo.

“Coming!” Ruby replied, looping her arm through her sister’s and joining the rest of the group in the luxurious vehicle.

Yang spent the entire ride back to the estate resting her head on Ruby’s shoulder as a way to express how grateful she was. She found it funny that the one person who had yet to be in a romantic relationship had been the one to bestow her with the best advice. Ruby may have been her baby sister, but she was also her leader, and it was moments like these that Yang couldn’t have been more happy to be her teammate and more proud to be her family.

“Thank you, sis” Yang whispered as they sped underneath the streetlights of the major metropolis.

“You’re welcome,” Ruby cooed back, resting her head against Yang's as the pair drifted into sleep.


	3. Mission in Mistral

Yang was awoken by the whirring sounds of weed wackers and leaf blowers as the Schnee landscaping crew did a number on the shrubbery outside her guest bedroom window. She couldn’t decide if the throbbing in her head was making the noise worse, or if the noise was making the throbbing in her head worse. Either way, there was no going back to sleep.

Yang rolled over and looked to her sister’s queen-sized bed on the other side of the large and lavish room, but Ruby was nowhere among the disheveled silk sheets. With more effort than it should’ve taken, Yang crawled to the corner of her oversized mattress and grabbed her scroll from the bedside table to check the time. It was already past noon.

As if realizing how long it had been since Yang fed it something sensible, her stomach squirmed and growled in protest.

“I hear you,” Yang said, patting the top of her tummy. Prioritizing finding food over finding her friends, Yang clambered out of bed, dressed herself, and headed in the direction of the kitchen—or at least the direction she thought might lead to the kitchen. Weiss’s mansion was so big it should’ve been it’s own kingdom.

After getting lost three times, Yang bumped into Weiss’s short yet sweet butler, Klein, and was personally escorted to the dining room by the gracious retainer. When he asked what she wanted to eat and Yang admitted she wasn’t sure, Klein seemed furious for a second. The manic moment was fleeting, however, and Klein’s gentle nature returned just as quickly as it vanished. He recommended the crab cake eggs benedict with a twinkle in his eyes, and Yang hastily agreed, both out of insatiable hunger and fear of how Klein might react if she disregarded the suggestion. Thankfully, the crab cake eggs benedict turned out to be an excellent choice, and Klein maintained his good humor long enough to supply Yang with an extra side of brown sugar bacon.

“The young miss has stepped out with ladies Blake, Nora, and Ruby,” Klein told her as he removed the plate Yang had practically licked clean. Yang was grateful for his company, even if he was simply there to wait on her. She felt fairly miniscule dining alone at a table that could comfortably seat fifty more people. “She wanted to get a head start on wedding preparations while her bridesmaids were congregated,” Klein added with a smile his bushy mustache couldn’t hide.

“You must be really happy for her,” Yang noted with a smile of her own.

“I’ve watched that girl grow from the time she was a baby,” Klein confessed. “I wouldn’t dare compare myself to her father, but I care for her like I would my own daughter. The fact that she’s getting married… I’m filled with quite a wide range of emotions.”

“I can tell,” Yang said, remembering back to his extreme mood swing from earlier. After downing the last gulp of her orange juice, Yang sighed with satisfaction and stood up to leave. “Thank you for breakfast, Klein. It was great!”

“Shall I call the chauffer for you, Miss?” Klein asked as Yang walked toward the door. “She can contact miss Weiss and arrange for you to meet up.”

Yang raised her prosthetic arm and gave two waves of her mechanical hand. “Don’t worry about it,” Yang said without halting or turning around. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself, even in a city like Atlas.”

That was before it took Yang thirty minutes to get from the front door to the front gate of the Schnee estate. It wasn’t as cold as it had been the night before, nor was Yang showing near as much skin, but her stomach had started aching again, even after filling it with a bunch of fancy food. She couldn’t tell if the ache was from her hunger or her hangover, but either way she decided it would be best to take it easy. Yang spoke with the guards at the gate and the chauffer arrived minutes later. She felt guilty for taking advantage of the help, but the help didn’t seem troubled in the slightest. In fact, they seemed almost eager to lend their assistance.

“I’ve located Miss Schnee. She’s at Patty Cake’s Bakery taste-testing wedding cakes,” the uniformed chauffer said as Yang climbed in the backseat of the swanky town car. She sounded like she was giving a military report.

“More fancy food? Let’s do it,” Yang replied casually. Perhaps that might alleviate whatever was ailing her stomach. After ensuring Yang had buckled her seatbelt, the dutiful driver took off down the hilly road that led to the bustling city.

The bakery was in uptown Atlas, so the drive was much shorter than Yang anticipated. Although the chauffer insisted on accompanying Yang until she was certain she’d found Weiss and the others, Yang assured her multiple times that such courtesy wasn’t necessary and bid her an awkward farewell in which both of them couldn’t decide who should close the car door. Yang was glad she wasn’t born rich—it complicated everything.

The bakery was as white and clean as one of Weiss’s best dresses, complete with a tall, vaulted ceiling and a crystal chandelier. Colorful sweets of all shapes, sizes, and flavors lined the glass display cases and a mixture of delectable aromas scented the atmosphere. Yang could feel the saliva in her mouth getting thicker just ogling the glistening fruit on top of the tarts and the chocolate drizzle striping the truffles.

“Yang! You made it!” a chipper voice called, snapping Yang out of her hypnotic state.

Yang turned to see her sister scurrying across the checkered floor towards her, unmistakable traces of pink icing smeared underneath her bottom lip.

“Any cake left for me to try?” Yang asked upon greeting her sister.

“There sure is! You can help Weiss pick. It’s a tie between tuxedo cake and pink champagne. I’m rooting for the pink champagne, though.”

“I would’ve guessed,” Yang said with a chuckle as she wiped the icing away from Ruby’s face with her thumb.

Ruby licked at whatever sugary specks Yang might’ve missed. “We’re in a special room in the back. Follow me.”

Ruby led the way down a narrow corridor as immaculate as the rest of the store and into a room with pale gold walls and furniture that looked like it would’ve belonged in any number of chambers at the Schnee estate. Blake and Nora were sitting on the cream-colored cushions of a wood backed couch, deep in discussion. Weiss sat cross-legged in a matching chair right beside them with a teacup to her lips and its saucer properly pinched between her fingers. A shiny golden tray filled with a variety of cake samples rested in the middle of the coffee table in front of them.

“Ah! Sleeping Beauty has decided to grace us with her presence,” Weiss teased, placing her teacup back on its saucer and its saucer on the corner of the coffee table.

"I'm _not_ Sleeping Beauty," Yang said sternly.

Weiss brushed the remark aside. “In any case, you’re just in time to help me make one of the biggest decisions of my life.”

Yang sauntered over to join her friends on the couch. "If the flavor of your wedding cake is one of the biggest decisions of your life, sounds like you’ve got it made,” she said. 

“Since I only intend to get married once, ALL of my decisions regarding the wedding are big,” Weiss explained.

Yang shrugged. “Whatever. Free cake, so I’m game.”

Weiss elegantly offered Yang two hunks of cake from the tray. Yang sampled the tuxedo cake first, savoring its sweet flavor and fluffy texture. Next came the pink champagne, and Yang had to agree with Ruby.

“Pink champagne is the way to go,” Yang said while still chewing the piece of cake. “You don’t want something so bold none of your guests are willing to try it, but you also don’t want something so bland it doesn't stand out. The pink champagne flavor is both safe and unique enough to satisfy everyone. Plus, that buttercream frosting is friggin’ incredible.”

Weiss looked genuinely pleased. “That was an excellent reflection, Yang. I appreciate you taking this so seriously,” she said.

Yang swallowed the cake and smiled. “Taste testing comes so easy to me. You could almost say… it’s a piece of cake!”

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Nora all groaned at the pun. “Should’ve stopped while you were ahead, sis,” Ruby chastised as she plopped down on the couch next to Yang.

After an afternoon of selecting wedding colors, flowers, invitations, and bridesmaid dresses, Yang was more than ready to call it a day, but not before Weiss rewarded them all by treating them to yet another fine ass meal in yet another fine ass eatery in uptown Atlas. Although Yang loved the adventure that came with being a Huntress, she also enjoyed the downtime she got with her girls. At least, when they weren’t trying to hook her up with their fiancés’ friends.

Yang was halfway through her chicken cordon bleu when Weiss brought up Azure for the first time all day.

“He wanted me to apologize on his behalf for his behavior. He swears it was the alcohol talking,” Weiss told her.

Yang gave a skeptical look in response and took a sip of her wine. “I was there, and I’m pretty sure I saw his lips do the talking, not the alcohol,” she said flatly.

“Oh, come on. You know what I mean—I mean what he meant… Anyway, if you plan on staying in town a little while longer, I could easily set up a luncheon for the two of you. A lunch date is much less intimidating than a dinner date, don’t you agree?”

Yang reached for her wine again and took a much larger sip. “Weiss, I appreciate your concern. Really, I do. But I don’t need any kind of date with Azure; lunch, dinner, or otherwise. I’m not single, therefore I’m not datable.” The last sentence tasted funny coming out of her mouth, but it felt good to say it.

“If you’re not single, then why don’t you call up your boyfriend right now and let him tell me that? Oh, wait… you can’t.” Weiss was trying to prove a point, but her points tended to cut just as deep as her rapier, and Yang didn’t take the pain lightly. Not right now, anyway.

Yang abruptly scooted her chair out from under her, scraping the wooden legs against the hardwood floor with enough force to leave scuffmarks. “I just remembered, I have somewhere I have to be,” Yang said, wiping her mouth with the napkin she kept in her lap before laying it over the remains of her meal.

“And just where exactly do you have to be?” Weiss demanded. “I thought you set aside this weekend to hang out with us.”

Yang felt the slightest tinge of guilt as her eyes scanned over her friends’ faces, but her anger was quick to eclipse that tiny shred of shame. “I did. I’ve been with you guys since yesterday morning, and since there are only two days to a weekend, time’s almost up. Besides, I have a fairly important job lined up, and I’d feel bad if I put it on the backburner any longer.”

“What job?” Ruby asked, narrowing her silver eyes in suspicion.

“The one I told you about last night. You might’ve been too drunk to remember,” Yang lied. “It’s all the way in Mistral, so I best be on my way. But I’ll see you all soon. We still have to get our dresses fitted once they’re made, right?”

Weiss sighed in defeat. “Fine. Go. But you better save the date for the actual wedding. Along with the bachelorette party… and the rehearsal dinner!”

Yang held up her hands defensively. “Just message me the details and I’ll be there. Huntress’s honor.”

After hugging all of her friends and bidding them goodbye, Yang left the restaurant and headed for the closest tavern. She’d been bluffing about having a mission in Mistral, but she fully intended to turn that lie into a truth as soon as possible.

She found the digitized job board in the back of the tavern along with several Hunters and Huntresses scouring through requests in search of the perfect one. When it was her turn to approach the board, she immediately searched for jobs that required her to journey to Mistral. Much to her disappointment, her search came up empty.

“Of course,” she grumbled. She didn’t _need_ to go to Mistral. She could easily pick a job anywhere and no one would question where she was. But ever since Emerald had shown her that letter, she’d wanted nothing more than to hop aboard the next boat heading southeast. She wasn’t going to be looking for Mercury—she was going to be on her own mission doing her own thing—that way she would be keeping her promise to Emerald. Should Mercury happen to bump into her while she was there… well, that was just a risk she was willing to take.

“Too bad. Just wasn’t meant to be,” she murmured to herself as she double-checked the Mistral missions to make sure there wasn’t some type of glitch.

“Um, excuse me?” a youthful voice piped up from behind her. Yang turned around to see a boy no older than ten looking up at her with bright, mauve colored eyes. He had ash blond hair parted to one side that was too short to reach past his ears, yet long enough to completely hide one of his eyebrows from view. His fair complexion stood out well against his dark ensemble. Everything from the laces on his converse shoes to the hood of his jacket was as black as a Nevermore’s feathers.

“Can I help you?” Yang asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Um… if you’re the lady in this article, I’d sure like to think so,” the boy replied. He removed a folded newspaper clipping from his jacket pocket and pointed to the article he meant. Yang knew what it was the moment she read the headline.

**HUMAN TRAFFICKERS GET AWAY AFTER THWARTED ABDUCTION.**

It was the story that came out the day after Ruby was almost kidnapped by Mercury’s uncle—the same day Mercury left in search of said uncle. But why would a kid have something like that?

“You’re Yang Xiao Long, right?” the boy asked.

Yang nodded.

“Then you’ve fought these kidnappers before! You know what they look like!” he said, his excitement growing with every syllable.

“I mean, not all of them, but I know what some of the head honchos look like, I guess.”

“Do you think you could take them out?”

What was this kid playing at? “Um, I nearly did,” Yang said, remembering back to the rooftop battle. She, Ruby, and Mercury had taken down countless cronies—not to mention how ballistic she went on the idiot formerly known as Jack. Katie didn’t seem all that threatening. It was just that Maurice guy... Yang had never seen pure and utter fear in Mercury’s eyes, but she clearly saw it when he looked at his uncle. Yang barely got the chance to fight Maurice, so she wasn’t sure if he actually warranted the amount of caution Mercury seemed to think he deserved. She knew he was quick, cruel, and specialized in poisonous weapons, but with enough preparation, an enemy like that could be taken down just like anyone else. No matter how tough Maurice was, he was still human, and all humans had weaknesses and made mistakes.

“Yeah, I can take ‘em,” Yang said with a bit more confidence. “I just wouldn’t know where to find them…”

“Lucky for you, I do!” the boy told her, folding his newspaper and stuffing it back in his pocket. “That’s why I’d like to recruit you for a mission.”

Yang blinked in bewilderment and titled her head to the side. “I’m sorry. You want to recruit me for a mission?”

The boy nodded.

“But you’re just a kid.”

The boy looked down at his arms and feet as if seeing himself for the first time. “Woah. You’re right! When did that happen?” His sass was cute, but didn’t help his case much. “I know I’m a kid,” he deadpanned, shifting his weight to one side. “But I’m a kid with Lien.” He reached his hand in another jacket pocket and pulled out a stack of colorful currency, fanning the Lien out with a flick of his wrist so Yang could count for herself just how much he had.

“Woah, kid. You’re loaded!” Yang exclaimed. “Where’d a punk like you get money like that?”

“My parents,” he said curtly, stuffing the Lien back in his jacket. “So if you’re done asking stupid questions, are you ready to help me or not?”

Yang placed her hands on her hips. “One last stupid question,” she said flatly. “What’s the point of the mission? The only search and destroy jobs I do are for Grimm. I’m not a murderer; I’m a Huntress. So if you’re looking for someone to kill those goons, you’re talking to the wrong girl.”

“I don’t want you to kill them!” the boy hastily clarified. “I just wanted to make sure you could hold your own against them since they’re the enemies we’ll be up against. The real mission I want to recruit you for is to find my brother. Those people kidnapped him a few days ago. I did some research and found out about you and your friends when looking up related incidents the kidnappers were involved in. So I came all the way to Atlas just to find you!”

“Why me? Why not Emerald? Or my sister? Or my boyfr… or Mercury?” Yang asked.

The boy shrugged. “Fate led me to you first. I think this is what they call destiny.”

Yang snorted. “Destiny is what you make it, kid.”

“So just make it your destiny to find my brother. It has to be you! You know what they look like and you can hold your own against them. Please? I’ll cover your travel expenses and everything. Food, hotel fees, you name it!”

Yang folded her arms across her chest and considered. The job paid well and presented her with the opportunity to exact a little revenge should Argus, Katie, or Maurice cross her path. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her.

“Where exactly are we heading if I agree to go with you?” Yang asked.

“Mistral. That’s the kingdom my brother was abducted from.”

Just like that, Yang extended her mechanical arm and shook the boy’s hand. “Alright, kid. You’ve got yourself a deal. We rescue your brother and try and bust one of the largest human trafficking operations in all of Remnant in the process. No biggie.” At least now she wouldn’t be lying to her friends about going on an important job in Mistral.

The boy’s mauve eyes gleamed so bright Yang thought there might’ve been tears building up behind them. “Thank you so much, miss. I’ll make it worth your while, I promise!”

“You can cool it with the ‘miss’ stuff,” Yang said. She’d had enough of that title at the Schnee estate. “Yang works just fine. And you are?”

“Mavros,” the boy said with a slanted smirk that seemed oddly familiar.

“Well, Mavros. When do we leave?”

“Right now!” Mavros said, pivoting on his heel and leading the way out of the tavern. The boy didn’t waste time. Maybe working for a kid wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Would you mind if we stop at the candy store before we head out?” Mavros asked.

Yang sighed. _Nope. Working for a kid is definitely going to have its ups and downs,_ she realized.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More original characters! w00t w00t! \\(^^)/
> 
> Mavros is gonna be cool, I promise (b^_^)b


	4. No More Caffeine

Traveling by air was much faster than traveling by sea, but it was also much pricier. Fortunately, money didn’t seem to be an issue for young Mavros. Time sure did, though. Thus, he and Yang headed straight for the airship docks after a quick trip to the closest candy store.

Yang didn’t get the chance to ride airships very often, but she always enjoyed them when the opportunity presented itself. At her request, she and Mavros stayed on the topmost terrace for takeoff—soaking in the spectacular view as the twinkling lights of the city below grew smaller and fuzzier until they were too distant to differentiate.

“We won’t reach Mistral until morning, so let me know when you’re ready to hit the hay,” Mavros told her as they made their way from the terrace to the cafeteria. “I booked us a sleeping compartment, so we won’t get any kinks or cramps from falling asleep in chairs.”

Yang was impressed. “Wow, kid. You really know how to travel.”

Mavros kept his eyes forward as he walked, though he seemed pleased by the compliment. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us once we land,” he reminded her. “We should both get a good night’s rest so we can be at our best come tomorrow.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Yang said using her mechanical hand to offer her young employer a mock salute with two robotic fingers.

Although Yang should’ve still been full from the dinner she had mere hours before, she was hungry enough to eat again the second they set foot in the airship eatery. Her stomach had been playing all sorts of tricks on her lately.

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Mavros said offhandedly as they waited in line to pay for their meals. “Pregnant ladies are hungry all of the time.”

Yang laughed. “That’s what I get for telling a kid about my health problems instead of a doctor,” she said. “Do you even know where babies come from? How old are you?”

“Nine and a quarter,” Mavros replied evenly, gliding his food tray along the rail and moving up in the line.

“The fact that you have to add that ‘quarter’ part tells me you’re too young to know,” Yang assumed.

“I do know!” Mavros fired back. “Boys come from daddies and girls come from mommies!”

Yang laughed again, slightly harder this time. “Wait, what? What makes you think that?”

“Well, I wanted a little sister when I was younger, so I asked my dad if I could have one. He told me, ‘Go ask your mother.’ That’s how I figured girls come from mommies and boys come from daddies.”

Yang stifled her laughter with her hand and closed her eyes to try and calm herself. She wasn’t about to give this kid his first sex talk, so she quickly changed the subject once she had enough willpower to keep a straight face.

“You seem pretty close with your parents,” she noted as they moved closer to the cashier. “Why aren’t they helping you find your brother? They must be worried, too.”

A dark shadow fell over the young boy’s face as his gaze lowered to the ground. “They’re gone,” he said quietly.

Yang’s smile faded and she suddenly felt very sheepish for asking something so personal. She assumed his parents were still living if they were supplying Mavros with all of his money. It never occurred to her that his massive amount of Lien was from an inheritance.

“I’m so sorry, Mav,” she said. Her fingers reached out to comfort him, but hesitated at the last instant before aborting the gesture altogether and returning to her side. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent—in more ways than one, actually.”

Mavros kept his eyes focused on his feet. “It happened a while ago, so I’ve come to terms with it. But Jin is all I have left.” He brought his gaze up to meet Yang’s. “That’s why we have to save him. Jin is the only family I have in this world, and I’m not about to lose him, too.”

Yang nodded so firmly half her long, blond tresses came falling over her shoulders. “You can count on me, kid! We’ll find him.” A small part of her wished she hadn’t made such a bold promise, especially since there was a possibility that Jin was already dead. But seeing how happy her words made Mavros was enough to brush such thoughts aside and make her concentrate on more positive thinking.

 _We’ll find him. He’s alive. He has to be,_ she told herself.

“I know he’s alive,” Mavros said.

Yang blinked. _If your semblance is telepathy, say ‘Duh, Yang.’_ she thought, using so much concentration she was surprised her expression wasn’t freaking the poor kid out.

“We have a special connection,” Mavros continued, oblivious to her attempt to speak telepathically to him and unfazed by her funny face. “I can tell he’s alive because of our matching birthmarks.” Mavros unzipped his jacket a little more than it already was and tugged the collar of his shirt down past his clavicle. Burning bright gold on the skin just above his heart was what appeared to be a lily flower tattoo.

“Your tattoo tells you your brother is alive?” Yang asked in confusion.

“No! It’s not a tattoo. It’s a birthmark,” Mavros corrected. “Jin was born with one, too, only his is on the opposite side. They serve as empathy links for us. If one of us is ever in an intense amount of pain or sadness, we can feel it. If Jin were dead, I’m almost positive it would stop glowing. Either that or disappear. The point is, I would be the first to know it if something bad happens to him.”

Yang stared at the golden flower on his chest in awe. “I’ve never heard of anything like that! And you were born with it?”

Mavros nodded and readjusted his clothes to once again hide the mysterious marking.

“Man… You must’ve had some pretty cool parents,” Yang said.

Mavros smiled. “You have no idea.”

They reached the cashier and paid for their trays before finding a corner table to dine at. Since the cafeteria was a grab-and-go kind of place, Yang snagged whatever sounded good without realizing how odd her selection of food was until she actually began eating it. Her unbalanced meal consisted of a bowl of fried pickles with chipotle ranch, three different kinds of pudding, a pimento grilled cheese sandwich, and six pieces of sushi.

“You can’t eat that!” Mavros all but shouted as Yang put the first piece of her rainbow roll in her mouth.

She hastily spat the slab of salmon and avocado back out. “Why not?” she asked, wiping her mouth on her napkin.

“You’re pregnant. Pregnant people can’t have raw fish.”

Yang laughed at the kid’s audacity. “It’s amazing how you know so much and so little at the exact same time,” she said.

Mavros took the rest of the sushi off her tray and traded it for half of his sweet potato fries. “If you want me to pay you, you can’t eat sushi. Or drink caffeine. Or do anything that might upset the baby.”

“For the last time, I’m not pregnant,” Yang growled, finding the joke’s continuation less amusing. But the sweet potato fries did look pretty tasty, so she didn’t fight him for her sushi. “Why didn’t you say anything while we were in the checkout line?” she asked as she reached for one of the longer fries.

“I didn’t notice until now. I didn’t think I needed to babysit you,” Mavros said bluntly.

Yang snorted. “That’s my line, kid.”

“I haven’t given you a reason to say it,” Mavros shot back.

After finishing their meals, Mavros and Yang located their sleeping quarters. There wasn’t much to it; just a pair of bunk beds, a sink with a medicine cabinet, and a small adjoining bathroom barely big enough to fit the old-fashioned toilet it contained.

“You can stay here, if you’d like. I’m gonna survey the ship a little more,” Mavros told her.

“Survey the ship? You sound like you think we might be attacked. Lighten up,” Yang teased. When she looked back, she saw Mavros with a stern expression.

“My parents died from a Grimm attack on an airship,” he said.

Yang felt her heart drop as fast as her smile and was preparing a string of apologies, but Mavros started laughing before she got the chance to form any coherent words.

“Just kidding!” he said. “You should see the look on your face.”

With that, Mavros left Yang alone in their compact compartment to silently question what the hell she was doing working for a freaking nine-year-old. Sorry. Nine-and-a- _quarter_ -year-old.

“He’s giving me a reason to go to Mistral. He’s giving me a reason to go to Mistral,” Yang chanted as she sprawled out across the bottom bunk.

She closed her eyes and repeated the words of Mercury’s letter in her mind, half surprised at how well she remembered them. “I wish I had a golden flower birthmark that told me if he was okay,” Yang said as she rolled over on her front. Before she got very comfortable, she had a premonition of Mavros busting down the door and yelling at her to stop sleeping on her stomach.

“Pregnant people shouldn’t do that!” she imagined him saying. 

With a heavy sigh, Yang turned to rest on her side. “I should’ve never told him I’ve been feeling sick,” she groaned. In all honesty, it didn’t really matter how she slept. She was so tired she probably could’ve dozed off standing up had she closed her eyes long enough to try.

She wished she’d fallen asleep sooner. Mercury was waiting for her in her dreams.

They were in an auburn forest. The setting sun’s rays shined through the trees and the passing breeze made the fallen autumn leaves swirl around their feet. Mercury stood a few paces in front of her, his arms folded across his chest and his signature smirk set in place.

There were so many things Yang wanted to say to him, but the most eloquent thing to make its way from her mouth first was, “You’re such a dick.”

Mercury suppressed a laugh. “I know,” he said, still smirking.

“It might not have been so bad if you hadn’t told me what a psycho this guy was right before you decided to go after him,” she added.

“I know,” Mercury said.

“And if you hadn’t met my family and put all these stupid thoughts in my head—like how we could be an actual, functional couple.”

“I know…”

“And if… if you hadn’t made me fall so fucking hard for you.”

If Mercury knew that one, he didn’t say so. His lips changed from a slanted smirk to a level line as the look in his metallic gray eyes softened. “I’m sorry. But I didn’t want to get you involved. I wouldn’t be able to fight him the way I want to if you were there. And if I didn’t go after him, it would only be a matter of time before he came after me... or worse—if he came after you.”

“I know,” Yang said, laughing at her word choice. Mercury was smiling again, too, though much more sincerely than the smug way he’d been smiling before.

“It seems like we know each other pretty well,” he said.

Yang shook her head. “When did that happen?”

A much stronger gust of wind flew by, blowing Yang’s hair in front of her face. By the time she brushed her wild mane out of her eyes, Mercury was right in front of her, wrapping his arms around her.

“I’ll come back to you,” he whispered against her cheek.

Yang brought her arms up and held him close. She would’ve said, “I know,” but the truth was she didn’t. She wouldn’t be so worried if she did. So instead she said nothing, choosing to enjoy his embrace rather than spoil the moment with her discouraging uncertainty.

Yang could’ve stayed like that much longer, but her agitated gut abruptly yanked her back to reality and sent her bolting out of bed and lunging for the toilet faster than she could say, _“Blllrrrgggh!”_

“Hangover from hell…” she wheezed after throwing up what felt like all three of her puddings and every last one of her sweet potato fries. Her stomach pain had been so bad she almost didn’t notice the chest pain that accompanied it.

“What’s a hangover?” Mavros asked from atop his bunk bed. The door to their tiny bathroom was wide open, and he had a birds-eye view of her miserable state.

Still clinging to the toilet, Yang glanced over her shoulder to look at the curious boy’s innocent face. He had both hands resting on the wooden bedpost, his chin perched on his knuckles, and his head tilted to one side so that his ash blond hair fell over his eye.

“It’s a type of sickness people get when they’re not pregnant,” Yang answered.

His lips twisted into a sour expression. “I’m nine and a quarter, not stupid,” he said.

Yang groaned and reached for the chain dangling above her head that flushed the toilet. “Kid, don’t make this worse than it already is,” she pleaded. “Tell you what. If you stop accusing me of being pregnant, you can pay me half of the original fee. All right?”

Mavros considered and shook his head. “No deal,” he said.

Yang sighed and picked herself up off the cold floor. “I’m going to get some fresh air,” she told him.

Mavros made to climb down from his bunk bed. “I’ll go with you!”

“No!” Yang shouted as he threw one leg over the side of his mattress. Mavros paused and looked at her like her dog did anytime she disciplined him. “No,” she repeated, much softer this time. “You need to get some sleep. Remember, we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Mavros slowly nodded and pulled himself back up to his bed. “So do you, so don’t take too long, okay?”

Yang nodded. “You got it, boss.”

She stopped at the cafeteria and got a can of ginger ale, a drink Mavros would’ve approved of due to it being caffeine-free. She then made her way to one of the open-air terraces where she could watch the stars. She took small sips of soda and big gulps of air until the queasiness was appeased.

“Guess I should head back,” she said, crunching her empty can of ginger ale in her fist and turning to leave.

“Head back where?” a familiar voice called from the opposite end of the terrace. Yang spun to see Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Nora approaching. She blinked and rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming again—but these ladies were no illusion. Their heels clicked, their hips swayed, and their eyes shined like the genuine article.

“If you’re heading back to Vale, awesome,” Ruby continued. “But if you’re heading to Mistral, you should probably reroute.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, snap! Yang's in troublllllllle!!


	5. Team RWBYN

Yang froze where she stood, utterly befuddled by the sight of her four friends aboard the same airship as her. She would’ve asked what they were doing there, but Ruby didn’t need prompting.

“Emerald said to keep an eye on you if you said anything about visiting Mistral,” Ruby explained with her hands on her hips. “I figured it had something to do with Mercury, but Em didn’t specify. So I’d sure appreciate it if you did.”

Yang sighed in defeat, slumping her shoulders and relaxing her rigid stance. She felt like a toddler who’d just been caught sneaking cookies from the cookie jar. “Apparently Mercury’s target is somewhere in northern Mistral,” Yang confessed. She saw no reason to hide her intentions now. “When I found out where he was, I took the first job I could get out east.”

“What job is that?” Weiss asked. “We all suspected you didn’t really have one when you left the restaurant, and it should’ve been impossible for you to pick one up on such short notice. I had the communication towers temporarily jam all job requests for Mistral for a solid twenty minutes after you said your goodbyes to us.”

Yang’s eyes widened in surprise. “That was you? You have the power to do that?”

Weiss smiled a smile so sweet it almost made Yang’s fussy stomach start churning again. “Don’t act so surprised. You ought to know by now what exactly I’m capable of,” Weiss said.

Yang wouldn’t soon forget, that was for sure. “Well, you ladies obviously weren’t tailing me as well as I thought you were if you didn’t see me talking with Mavros.”

“You mean that boy you left the tavern with?” Blake asked.

Yang felt like a brick was dropping on her head every time someone else spoke. “Okay. So you _did_ see me talking with Mavros,” she said.

“Yeah. What’s the deal with the kid?” Nora asked. “We’ve seen you hanging out with him all night, but we haven’t heard any of your conversations.”

Yang wondered why the four of them hadn’t approached her sooner if they’d been tailing her for so long, but perhaps they were waiting for her to break away from Mavros before confronting her.

“As crazy as it sounds, he actually sought me out for a special mission,” Yang said. “His brother had a run-in with the same people that tried to kidnap Ruby last month. While researching the bad guys, Mavros found the news article detailing our clash with them. After reading it, he came to the conclusion that I’d be the best candidate to help him find his missing brother since I know what the kidnappers look like and how they fight.”

“So you _are_ going to Mistral to find a missing person… Just not the missing person that we thought you were trying to find,” Ruby clarified.

Yang shrugged and attempted her best nonchalant attitude. “I mean, it’d be cool if we found both…” She could tell she wasn’t fooling anyone. “But the kid’s brother takes top priority,” she added with a little more resolve.

Blake placed her hand on Yang’s shoulder. “Since we’re already here, we might as well all team up and help out,” Blake said. “Eight more eyes couldn’t hurt a search party, right?”

“Ooooh, yeah!” Nora exclaimed, evidently excited by this idea. “Think about it, guys! Our team name would be Team RWBYN, like a Rueben sandwich!” she gleefully pointed out. “How yummy does that sound?”

Yang chuckled. “Pretty friggin’ yummy,” she agreed with a smile that was contagious enough to make everyone smile right back at her. “Team RWBYN it is.”

“All right, Team RWBYN! We’re set to dock in Mistral in T-minus seven hours! Meet back here once we land and be prepared to rock and roll. Move out!” Ruby ordered.

Nora and Blake took Ruby’s command to heart and started walking toward the airship’s interior. Ruby and Yang made a move to go with them, but Yang was stopped by a sudden tug on her sleeve.

“Hey. Could I talk with you a minute?” Weiss asked, tightly latching onto the cuff of Yang’s duster with her delicate fingers.

Yang looked to Ruby and nodded for her to continue on. Ruby looked from Weiss to Yang before nodding back and scuttling away to catch up with the other members of Team RWBYN.

“What’s up?” Yang asked once Weiss released her.

“First of all, I wanted to apologize…”

“For jamming the communication towers?” Yang asked.

“For being so persistent about you dumping Mercury,” Weiss said. “Though, I guess I should apologize for the communication towers, too…”

Amused by how cute apologetic Weiss was, Yang smiled and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I ended up taking a mission from a kid who really needs me, so it all worked out. As for the Mercury stuff,” Yang paused for dramatic effect, trying hard not to laugh when she noticed Weiss subtly hold her breath, “if I could be swayed so easily, I wouldn’t really be in love, now would I?”

Weiss blushed and smiled back. “I have to admit how admirable I find your resolve towards him. If you’re willing to go to such lengths to find him, then I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t support you.”

“Thanks, Weiss. But you’ve been a friend this whole time. You were just being a really, _really_ annoyingly protective one.”

“I swear I only had your best interest in mind!” Weiss assured her.

“I know. And most girls need friends like you to snap them out of their toxic relationships. Mercury and I… our relationship is a lot of things. But toxic isn’t one of them.”

Weiss nodded. “I just hated seeing you so sad, and knowing how sad he’s made you in the past only made it worse. However… I can see the gallantry behind his actions this time around. Thus, I’ll let it slide.”

“Does that mean he can be my plus one to the wedding?” Yang asked, poking Weiss in her ribs.

Weiss playfully shoved Yang away and pulled her ribs out of reach. “Well, of course. Just make sure you RSVP,” she said.

“Girl. I spent over an hour helping you pick out wedding invitations. I’ll be damned if I don’t respond to my own.”

The two laughed and began walking back inside, their arms wrapped around the other’s waist in a side hug.

“This might be your last mission as a single lady, huh?” Yang mentioned.

“Hm? Oh. I guess that’s true…” Weiss said.

“Maybe we can sort of make this an extension of your bachelorette party?” Yang felt some slight guilt for causing everyone to cut their girls weekend short on her behalf. Maybe this could be her way of compensating for it.

Weiss considered. “I mean, the mission will have to come first and foremost, but I wouldn’t mind making it a little special. So long as we have another more traditional soirée upon our safe return.”

“You got it,” Yang agreed.

Ruby, Blake, and Nora were awaiting them in the main lobby of the airship.

“I guess this is where we part ways,” Yang said.

“You’re more than welcome to stay with us. I rented a suite big enough to comfortably accommodate all of us,” Weiss said.

“Thanks, but Mavros already booked us our own suite. I’d feel bad leaving the little guy by himself. I’ll meet you all on the terrace first thing tomorrow morning and introduce you to our client. He has a mouth on him, but he’s a pretty cool kid.”

Mavros didn’t speak or stir when she entered their room, so she poked her head over the top of the bunk to check on him. The cute kid had a face like a chubby-cheeked cherub when he slept. His eyelashes were so long, they would’ve made any number of girls jealous. Yang brushed his feathery hair out of his face and paused when she realized how motherly she was acting.

Before Mavros woke up to catch her in the act, Yang climbed into her bottom bunk and pulled the covers over her head. The last thing she needed was for Mavros to have more evidence for his pregnancy theory.

"I'm not pregnant," Yang whispered to herself, as if saying it aloud made it official.

She placed her human hand on her stomach and felt a wave of panic rush through her when she noticed how pudgey the bottom half of her midriff was.

 _It's just a coincidence,_ she told herself. _I've been totally porking out all weekend. It's natural for my pooch to get a little poochier._

Although odds were it was just a food baby, Mercury and Yang hadn't exactly been playing it safe during his last visit. As much as Yang hated to admit it, their was some merit in Mavros's deduction.

She took a deep, calming breath and closed her eyes. If Mercury was in her dreams again, she was going to drag his ass to a convenience store and make him pay for a pregnancy test. And a pizza. And some chocolate. And some ramen. And whatever else she was hungry for, because goodness knows those all sounded scrum-diddly-umptious.

Yang opened her eyes in terror.

"Holy shit, I think I'm pregnant."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me I'm not the only fan who sits there and thinks of fun team names for when certain characters team up.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...Anyone?
> 
> Anyone?!!? Okay. Just me, then :p
> 
> P.S. If Mercury ever led a team comprising of Coco, Ruby, and Yang, they'd be Team MCRY (Team Mercury!)  
> Just saying ;)


	6. What Would Mercury Do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if there are typos! I should edit more before I post... but I don't wanna!

“So… basically… my number of recruits quintupled over night?” Mavros asked once Yang explained the four new additions to their team. They were standing on the airship’s terrace, enjoying the view of the sunrise while waiting for the ship to land and the rest of their teammates to assemble.

“The pay will still be the same,” Yang told him. “You get five Huntresses for the price of one. You lucked out, kid!”

Mavros beamed from ear to ear. “Can’t argue with that,” he said. “So where are these bargain Huntresses?”

Yang scanned the crowd of people around them. “I’m not sure,” she admitted after failing to find her friends. “But they’ll be here soon. Then you can brief us on our plan of action once we land.”

“Right,” Mavros said with a nod. “We can’t really do too much until we know much more, but I at least have a starting point.”

Yang smiled. “That’s all we need.”

“That can’t be ALL you need,” Nora countered, sneaking up behind Mavros and Yang holding a white cardboard box. “Not unless you’re talking about breakfast!” She opened the box’s lid to reveal a dozen appetizing donuts, their sugary scent making the puffy pastries even more irresistible than their colorful coats of icing.

“Mavros, this is Nora,” Yang said. “She’s… a little eccentric, but in a good way.”

Nora smiled, approving of the introduction. “You get a donut for that one, Yang! Take your pick.”

Yang skimmed the rows of donuts in search of the most delectable-looking one. “Are there any cream-filled ones?” she asked.

“Uh-huh!” Nora confirmed, pointing to two different kinds. “This one has chocolate cream and this one has strawberry cream. Which one do you want?”

“Both,” Yang said honestly.

Nora giggled and handed her the two cream-filled confections. Yang took a bite out of the chocolate one first. She noticed Mavros staring at her while she ate with raised eyebrows and a knowing smile that said, “One for you and one for the baby, huh?” Yang ignored him and turned back to Nora.

“Where’s everyone else?” she asked before sampling the strawberry cream-filled donut as well.

“Here,” Blake announced. She was flanked by Ruby and Weiss, and all three ladies were approaching with StarLien cups. “We thought some coffee, tea, and donuts might be a good way to start the day,” Blake said.

“I didn’t know there was a StarLien here!” Yang exclaimed as Ruby handed her a cup.

“There are StarLiens EVERYWHERE,” Ruby said. “If you can’t find one, it’s ‘cause you’re not looking hard enough.”

Yang hoped she’d have better luck locating Jin than she did the famous coffee shop chain. Before she could take her first sip, she felt a small hand latch around her elbow and pull her arm down.

“Is that coffee?” Mavros asked. “Doesn’t coffee have caffeine?”

Yang sighed dramatically. “For the last time, kid, I’m not—” She paused mid-outburst and glanced around at her fellow Huntresses whose undivided attention was currently hers to command. “…thirsty,” she finished, deciding it’d be better to forfeit the coffee than plant the thought of her being pregnant in her friends’ heads. She meekly handed the cup to Mavros who gladly accepted it.

“Here, I’ll trade you,” Blake said, offering Mavros one of her two cups in exchange the one he yoinked from Yang. “I thought you might be too young for coffee, so I got you some chai tea—the same as me.”

“Thanks,” Mavros said, swapping for the tea with a smile. He took a small sip and his smile grew even bigger. “It’s good.”

“I’m Blake, by the way.”

“Oh, and I’m Ruby!”

“Nora here! But you already knew that.”

“And I’m Weiss. It’s nice to make your acquaintance.”

“Thanks! It’s nice acquainting,” Mavros said happily. He was such a cute kid; it was hard for Yang to stay angry with him for depriving her of her tall double mocha cappuccino. At least he didn’t seem to care how many donuts she scarfed down. Either that, or he was too caught up conversing with his new hires to see Yang sneak a third donut from Nora’s box.

The three chimes that signified the start of all airship announcements sounded through the intercoms, causing a hush to fall over the crowd.

_Attention all passengers! Attention all passengers! We will be arriving in Windpath, Mistral in approximately ten minutes. Please locate all of your personal belongings, weaponry, and children, and do not block any exits or passageways. Thank you for flying Atlas Air and enjoy the rest of your flight!_

The chimes sounded again and the intercom fell silent.

“Ten minutes… You think that’s enough time to tell us your plan?” Yang asked, looking to Mavros. The blond boy pulled his chai tea away from his lips and firmly nodded.

“Plenty of time,” Mavros said. He cleared his throat and beheld his team of Huntresses with a spark in his mauve colored eyes. “The mission is simple; we’re saving my brother, Jin, who was kidnapped by the Knowbodies.”

“The KNOWbodies? Is that what they’re calling themselves?” Weiss asked.

“Well, it’s what I call them… because nobody knows who they are or what their endgame is. And if you do, you don’t for long,” Mavros explained. “The only thing that’s common knowledge is they’ve been abducting young girls from Vale and young boys from Mistral. Their base of operations seems to be somewhere in Mistral, but that’s plain guesswork on my part. It’s not an actual fact.”

“What makes you think they operate in Mistral?” Yang asked, remembering a line in Mercury’s letter… _Looks like he’s been operating in and out of northern Mistral for a few years now..._

“Mistral is infamous for several things,” Mavros said, “and two of them are its black market and crime syndicates, so it makes the most sense for them to operate where business is busiest. Plus, the Knowbodies always stay close to port cities when they’re in Vale, at least according to the newspaper articles I managed to link them to. That indicates they’re constantly ready to set sail when in kingdoms other than Mistral.”

“So it’s clear Jin is somewhere in Mistral, but that’s a huge place. Where do we even start?” Ruby asked.

“Northern Mistral,” Yang answered without thinking.

Everyone’s eyes locked on Yang before traveling to Mavros for confirmation. He looked impressed.

“She’s right,” he said. “Jin was abducted while we were visiting an amusement park near Windpath, the city we’re set to dock in. We’ll begin our search there.”

“An amusement park near Windpath? You don’t mean Dizzy World, do you!?” Nora asked, her pure elation escalating when Mavros confirmed the park’s name. “Whoo-hoo!! I need to convince Ren to take more jobs from kids. What a fun place to start an investigation!”

“Remember, we’re working, Nora,” Yang reminded her.

“She’s got the right idea, though,” Mavros said. “We’ll stick out too much if we’re so focused on hunting for clues we overlook the attractions. That’s why the plan is to enjoy the park and blend in, but stay alert.”

“Do you have a picture of what Jin looks like?” Ruby asked. “It’d be easier to keep my eyes peeled if I knew what I was peeling them for.”

“Oh, he looks just like me. We’re identical twins,” Mavros casually mentioned, like it was no big deal.

“No way,” Yang said, though the golden lily empathy link Mavros shared with his brother made a little more sense if they were twins. “For some reason, I always thought you were the older brother.”

“I am older. Well, by four and a half minutes,” Mavros said. He reached his hand behind his head and nervously laughed. “Eh heh heh heh… Sorry I forgot to mention the twin thing.”

“Pfft. Details… who needs ‘em?” Yang asked mockingly.

By the time they finished going over a few more _details_ regarding their mission, the airship safely touched down in Windpath. It was clear how the city got its name. Yang and Blake were fighting to keep their hair out of their faces every ten steps they took while Ruby, Weiss, and Nora had just as much trouble keeping their skirts down. After stopping at a store and purchasing pants, shorts, and proper hair accessories, team RWBYN was wind-resistant and ready to rumble.

Dizzy World was a short train ride away from the city. Yang chuckled at how excited Nora and Ruby got when the train pulled out of a tunnel and the tracks of a roller coaster came into view. The coaster weaved in and out of caves carved into the seaside cliff, with plenty of loops, drops, and twists to make any thrill-seeker giddy.

“That’s the Intimidator—the last ride I rode with Jin,” Mavros said to Yang, pointing at the rollercoaster in the distance.

“You said he went to retrieve a stuffed animal he left behind in one of the guest cubbies, but then never came back?” Yang asked.

Mavros nodded. “None of the ride’s operators said they saw him come back. I believed them because Jin’s stupid toy was still in its cubby when I went to look for him. Which means somewhere between the loading dock for the rollercoaster and its exit gate, my brother got snatched.”

“The security footage didn’t have anything helpful?” Weiss asked.

Mavros shook his head. “There’s a blind spot where Jin slips away from view. Whoever did the snatching knows the park fairly well, or at least the security cameras’ blind spots fairly well… Not to mention Jin isn’t the first boy to go missing from that place. Dizzy World is one of their primary picking grounds, I’m sure of it. They’ll definitely strike again.”

“All the more reason Mavros should have a bodyguard with him at all times. Just in case,” Blake suggested. She looked to Yang. “Since this was originally your mission, would you like to do the honors?”

Yang used her mechanical hand to give a thumbs-up. “Leave it to me.”

Upon entering Dizzy World, Mavros reiterated to relax and have fun—instructions Nora and Ruby had no problem adhering to. They made their way to the Intimidator first, only stopping for a photo op with a costumed character Nora was overly excited to see. Yang didn’t see what was so great about taking a picture with a sweaty man in a giant bear suit, but it made Nora so happy, so she held her tongue and let Nora have her moment.

Before passing through the gate that led to the nerve-wracking roller coaster, Yang came to an abrupt halt. Only Blake and Mavros seemed to notice for they were the only ones to stop, too.

“What’s wrong?” Blake asked. “I thought you love roller coasters.”

“I do…” Yang said. Her eyes darted to one of the warning signs plastered by the entrance. Just beside the you-must-be-this-tall-to-ride-this-ride marker was a big yellow sign with bold black letters that read: **DO NOT RIDE IF PREGNANT.** Blake was oblivious to the cautionary sign Yang kept glancing at, but Mavros managed to pick up on the dilemma straight away.

“You wanna keep an eye on the exit, don’t you, Yang? Since that’s where Jin was taken from?” Mavros asked.

Yang let out a breath of relief. The kid was as sharp as he was smooth. She’d have to thank him for his discretion later. “You guessed it,” she said. “You go on ahead, Blake. I think it’s four to a row anyway. I’ll wait with Mavros by the exit to see if we can find any clues.”

Blake narrowed her golden eyes and for a second Yang thought she might’ve seen right through their impromptu cover, but her suspicion was fleeting and their friends were calling for her to catch up. “Keep an eye on the kid,” Blake told her before continuing on.

“Whew. That was close,” Yang said as she and Mavros walked around to the ride’s exit.

“When are you gonna tell them?” Mavros asked.

“Hmm... Probably when I know for sure myself.”

“You’re still not sure? Is there a way to be?”

“I’d need some… medicine,” Yang said, trying hard not to burst his blissfully naïve bubble surrounding the true workings of procreation.

“This way, then!” Mavros said, putting a little more pep in his step. “There’s a gift shop at the exit of every ride. I know they sell stuff for motion sickness. Maybe they sell the medicine you need, too!”

Yang laughed at the thought of a Dizzy World gift shop selling pregnancy tests, and then laughed even harder when she found out it actually did. “I guess when it’s one of the happiest places on Remnant, things can happen,” Yang mused quietly to herself as she checked the box for the test’s expiration date. She then grabbed a bottle of water near the checkout line and paid for her purchases.

“Is that to wash the medicine down with?” Mavros asked, eyeing the water bottle as they exited the gift shop.

“Something like that,” Yang said before uncapping the bottle and chugging its contents until she heard the satisfying crunch of empty plastic in her metal grip.

“But you didn’t even take your medicine yet!” Mavros objected.

“I need the water before I can use the medicine,” Yang assured him. “Now, do you know if there are any bathrooms nearby?”

Mavros assessed their surroundings. “Uh, yeah. Right over there by the talking fountain and the hamburger joint.”

Yang took a step in the direction of the bathroom before remembering her one and only job at the moment was to keep the kid in her line of sight.

“I’ll be fine,” Mavros told her, wordlessly picking up on her internal dilemma once again. “It’s daytime. Jin got kidnapped at night. I’ll stay by the fountain where there are lots of witnesses. Plus,” he pointed to a nearby lamppost where the lens of a surveillance camera gleamed in the sunlight, “if anything does happen to me, you’ll at least have footage of it. No blind spots out here.”

Mavros made valid points, but Yang couldn’t quell the uneasiness she felt about abandoning her charge. After a little more urging on Mavros’s part, Yang reluctantly left the sweet-talking kid to go take the biggest test she’d taken since passing her final Huntress exam.

The box contained not one, but two test sticks. Yang decided to use both for more accurate results, and because there was no point in saving it; she didn’t plan on using another one ever again. After urinating on the indicated parts of the sticks for the amount of time the box specified, Yang set the tests on the lid of the toilet’s water tank and pressed her back against the door of her stall as she patiently waited for her scores.

“Should’ve studied harder,” she joked to herself. Her momentary amusement faded as she wondered what Mercury would say if he knew she might be pregnant. What would he do? Would he turn tail and run like she always thought he would if Yang wanted more than just sex from him?

_I guess he already did,_ Yang realized, staring down at the tips of her boots. She scrunched her eyes shut and shook her head. _No. I know why he left. I’m just feeling sorry for myself._

She inhaled deeply, breathing in a mixture of cleaning solvent and the substances the solvent had yet to clean. This wasn’t the ideal place to take a pregnancy test. Most women did it in the comfort of their own homes with their family, friends, or potential fathers anxiously awaiting them in the next room. Yang was doing it in a dingy Dizzy World bathroom stall with a nine-year-old client indifferently awaiting her by a talking fountain outside.

_Merc and I never really do things by the book,_ she reminded herself with a small smile.

As atypical as their relationship was, Yang loved every minute of it—the ups, the downs, the goods, the bads, the sweets, the sours—all of it. They weren’t an ideal couple, but that wasn’t something she ever cared about. Yang simply wanted to be herself; to live her life, dream her dreams, and help whoever she could with whatever power she had. Mercury hadn’t always factored into that equation—in fact there was a time he drastically took away from it—yet nowadays, Yang had a hard time envisioning any kind of life without Mercury in it.

_I love him,_ she thought to herself with a look of determination serving to define the lines of her face, _and I’m going to keep loving him no matter what this stupid stick says._

Her mind went white. Suddenly, she was on top of a tall building in broad daylight fighting a man with aviator goggles that transformed into dual daggers, and she was winning. She’d activated her semblance and was punching the man repeatedly, beating him further and further into the cracking pavement beneath him until he fell unconscious. Although most of her anger had been drained in the attack, a small fire still burned in her chest as she gazed down at the miserable man at her feet.

“I love you so much right now,” she heard Mercury say from behind her.

She turned around with a start. “What did you just say?” she asked.

“I… I…” Mercury stuttered. He had such a wiseass-way with words, so it was surprising to see him at such a loss for them. It was almost as surprising as him saying _I love you,_ which is why it was downright jaw-dropping when he said it again.

“I love you,” Mercury repeated, his eyes as unwavering as his words.

Yang held his gaze and felt a new kind of fire burning in her chest, one much more calming yet just as powerful as the flames of her semblance. Unfortunately, the fire soon turned to pain and the pain soon drew her out of her memory and back to the cramped quarters of the Dizzy World bathroom stall.

Yang clutched at her chest, digging her heels into the wet, tiled floor and pressing her back harder against the locked door. She took long and slow breaths of air until the pain finally ebbed away. She hated how the mere memory of Mercury made her ache like that, but she was grateful for how that particular memory had come to her at that particular time. It made her realize exactly what Mercury would do if he found out she was pregnant.

“He’d love me. No matter what,” she said unintentionally loud enough for the ladies in neighboring stalls to hear her. She didn’t need a golden flower tattoo or birthmark or whatever to tell her that. She and Mercury had their own kind of connection, and because of it she knew the one thing he cared about just as much if not more than himself was her. It didn’t matter what the pregnancy tests said. Mercury would love her either way. They’d make it work, just like they always did.

Yang pried herself from the bathroom stall’s door and reached for both sticks. Enough time had passed. She looked from one stick to the other and saw they both had the same result: two blue lines.

Her arms fell to her sides as if her hands were blocks of cement.

“I’m… pregnant…”

“Congratulations,” she heard the crotchety voice of an elderly woman call from one stall over. “You said he’d love you no matter what, so no worries, kiddo.”

Yang smiled as she felt a blush creep across her face. She would’ve thanked the old woman for her kind words, but carrying on a conversation like that any longer was just awkward. Luckily, she saw the woman come out while she was washing her hands and was able to thank her then.

Yang emerged from the bathroom ready to tell Mavros the news, only Mavros wasn’t waiting by the fountain like he said he’d be. Blake was, though.

“Blake? What are you doing here? Where’s Mavros?!” Yang asked, a hint of urgency emphasizing her last question.

“He’s fine. He’s with Weiss. Calm down,” Blake said. “Ruby saw a familiar woman while we were waiting in line to get on the Intimidator, so we all rushed out to follow her—well Ruby and Nora followed her. Weiss and I came to find you and Mavros. She said it looked like a woman you fought back in Patch. Katie? Does that ring any bells?”

Yang felt her eyes go wide. “Ruby saw Katie?! Where?!”

“It looked like she was heading towards the center of the park, where that event arena is. Weiss and Mavros went on ahead to catch up with Nora and Ruby.”

“What are we waiting for? Let’s catch up, too!” Yang said. She took off at a run, but Blake caught her by her wrist and slowed her down.

“Remember what Mavros said—it’s best to blend in. We’ll stick out too much if we’re going mach speed,” Blake pointed out.

Yang grumbled under her breath and settled for a subtle powerwalk. Blake fell in step right alongside her and together they strutted their way to Dizzy World’s live entertainment arena.

If Katie was there… did that mean Mercury was, too?


	7. Coincidence?

It didn’t take a brainiac to figure out what was going on. Dizzy World was hosting a fight tournament for boys between the ages of eight and twelve to compete for a chance to win a scholarship to a private school for young Hunters in training.

“It’s a trap,” Yang said when she read the poster advertising the event on the outer walls of the arena.

“It has to be,” Blake agreed. “They’re attracting young Hunters in the same age range as the missing boys… but why? Those have to be some of the most dangerous targets to deal with. The only thing worse would be full-fledged Hunters.”

Yang scratched her chin with her metal fingers. “That’s a good point. Maybe they don’t want just anyone.” Yang remembered back to her personal run-in with the Knowbodies and how Emerald mentioned they were going after Ruby because they were looking for rare and exotic girls. “I think they’re on the hunt for special targets—and what better way to fish for them than to hold a contest like this in a kid-friendly place like Dizzy World where you’d least expect it?”

“So what do we do?” Blake asked.

Yang turned on her heel and walked away from the poster. “Find the rest of our team,” she said.

They didn’t have to look too hard. The arena was big, but it was nothing compared to the size of the Vytal Festival stadium. Seconds after Blake and Yang entered the seating area, they caught sight of Nora by the front row, waving her arms in the air and gesturing for them to come down and join her.

“Where are the others?” Yang asked once they reached Nora.

“Oh, you know… just signing Mavros up for the competition,” Nora said casually.

“What? Why?!” Yang demanded. “You do realize this is a trap, right? He doesn’t need to compete!” she hissed in a hushed voice. 

“If we want behind the scenes access, he kind’ve does,” Nora countered. “Weiss and Ruby are pretending to be his guardians. All three of them will be able to come and go as they please with Mav as a competitor. Besides, the three of us have front row seats. If something funky does happen to Mavros during the tournament, we can easily jump in and stop it.”

Blake nodded. “It’s a good plan. I say we go with it.”

Yang sighed. “Okay, fine,” she conceded. “But both of you better be on your toes.”

“Are you kidding?” Nora asked with a hearty laugh. “Watching fights only gets me more amped up to fight! I’m revving to go just thinking about it!”

Nora wasn’t the only one amped up about the tournament. When the others reconvened with them, Mavros was wearing the same triumphant grin he wore anytime he took Yang’s caffeine or sushi away from her.

“Do you even know how to fight?” Yang asked.

Mavros smirked. “If you’re going to survive in this world, you have to,” he replied.

Yang snorted with laughter. Since when did the kid get so cool? For someone so confident, he must’ve had some martial arts background, so Yang convinced herself to worry a little less.

“Any sign of Katie?” Yang asked, looking to Ruby.

Ruby flattened her lips and shook her head. “We lost her, but this contest and her presence can’t be a coincidence.”

“And you’re sure it was Katie?” Yang pressed.

“I… didn’t get a good look at her face,” Ruby confessed, “but I have a gut feeling it was her. And she wasn’t alone—she had two beefy guys with her. Who else would bring bodyguards to a place like Dizzy World?”

Mavros hesitantly raised his hand in the air.

“I mean besides him,” Ruby said.

“Regardless if it was this Katie character or not, we can all agree that this tournament is suspicious. So this is our best plan of action for the moment,” Weiss cut in.

“Weiss is right,” Blake said. “The first fight isn’t for another two hours. Why don’t we take a breather and get a quick bite to eat in the meantime? If Mavros intends to do well in this thing, he’ll need an energizing meal.”

“The better he does, the more likely he is to get kidnapped,” Yang pointed out.

“That’s why we’ve already put an Atlas Tech homing device on him,” Weiss said. “We kind of WANT him to get kidnapped. They’ll lead us right to their base if that happens.”

Yang looked to Mavros. “And you’re okay with this?” she asked.

Mavros shrugged. “If it means finding the place where they took Jin, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Yang didn’t like the idea of using their charge as bait, but the look in Mavros’s eyes told her he was going to go through with it whether she gave her permission or not. He was headstrong, just like her. It was funny to see that kind of tenacity from a different point of view.

“All right. You win,” Yang said. “Go for the gold and get yourself kidnapped so we can save your nine-and-a-quarter-year-old butt.”

Mavros smirked. “You got it, boss.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

If there's one thing that sucked about being pregnant, it was how badly it messed with Yang's appetite. Mavros selected the best restaurant in the park to dine at, but the aroma of freshly baked garlic bread and chargrilled meats did more to turn Yang’s stomach than tantalize it.

“You okay there, sis? You look like you’re gonna be sick,” Ruby observed while spinning her fork in her plate of pasta.

“I think I just got motion sickness,” Yang croaked out.

“But we didn’t ride anything,” Ruby said bluntly.

“I meant from the train ride over here,” Yang amended with a nervous giggle.

“You seemed fine on the airship,” Blake noted.

“I… um… actually…”

“She _was_ sick on the airship,” Mavros interjected. “She couldn’t stop throwing up.”

Ruby put her hand to Yang’s forehead. “You do feel kind of warm,” she said.

“I’m fine,” Yang assured her, brushing her sister’s hand away. “Just not hungry.”

Yang wasn’t certain how she was going to tell her friends she was pregnant, but she decided it would have to wait until after the mission. The only kid they needed to fuss over for the time being was Mavros.

“How'd you do on your test?” Mavros asked on their way back to the arena. They’d managed to fall a few steps behind everyone else, and Mavros was smart enough to whisper and not draw attention to his question.

“I got a B minus,” Yang said jokingly, causing Mavros to knit his eyebrows together in confusion. “Ha, ha! I’m kidding. I got a P plus… for pregnant.”

“That’s great news!” Mavros shouted, throwing his fists in the air and their private conversation to the wind.

“What’s great news?” Blake asked, turning back to look at Mavros and Yang. She wasn’t alone. All of their companions’ eyes were now fixed on the blondes bringing up the rear.

“I… just told him he’s one of the best clients I’ve ever worked for,” Yang said, stretching her mouth into a toothy smile that felt more like a rectangle than a curve.

“I agree. You had me at Dizzy World, kid,” Nora admitted with a wink before turning to face forward again. Ruby and Weiss seemed satisfied with Yang’s answer, too, but Blake hesitated for a moment, narrowing her eyes so that her catlike appearance was even more perceptible before letting it drop and continuing on.

Yang sighed. “Try to contain your excitement,” she muttered to Mavros.

Mavros held his hands up defensively. “My bad,” he whispered.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The stadium was much more lively by the time they made it back. Onlookers were waiting in concession lines and filing into seats, staff members were busy setting up equipment, and reporters were sprinkled in every so often interviewing competitors.

“I’m surprised there’s so much press coverage,” Weiss said as they walked by a particularly energetic reporter in the midst of questioning a much less energetic participant. “You’d think they’d want to keep something like this under wraps if they were using it as a way to lure out their prey.”

“We still don’t know if the Knowbodies are the ones pulling the strings,” Ruby reminded her. “And if they are the ones manipulating this tournament, they might be manipulating the media, too. Who’s to say these people aren’t all hired thugs in disguise putting on an act?”

Yang shuddered. “That’s giving me the creeps just thinking about it,” she said.

“Unfortunately, it’s a possibility,” Blake said. “Act natural, but be on guard at all times.”

“That goes double for you, kid,” Yang said, elbowing Mavros in his arm.

“Ow… Okay, okay,” Mavros grumbled, massaging the arm Yang nudged.

“By golly, gee wilikers! You’re a cutie patootie, aren’t cha?” a high pitched voice called, turning their attention to a bespectacled woman dressed in leather chaps, a collared shirt, and a bright pink cowgirl hat. As evidenced by the guy holding a boom microphone over her head and the cameraman following closely behind, she was a reporter.

“Are you talking to me?” Mavros asked, pointing at himself.

“I would reckon I am since I don’t see any other cutie patooties round these here parts. No offense, ladies,” the reporter said, tipping her hat as a means of apology.

“Some taken,” Nora said with a frown, folding her arms across her chest.

“Uh… right! So, are you competin’ in the tournament?” the reporter asked, bending down to be at eye-level with Mavros and completely ignoring his non-cutie-patootie escorts.

“Um, well, yeah,” Mavros answered, his eyes darting from the reporter’s big, red-rimmed glasses to the camera lens peering at him from over her shoulder.

“That’s gosh darn adorable. And how old are ya?” she asked.

“Nine,” Mavros said.

“And a quarter,” Yang added for him.

The reporter stood up to acknowledge Yang. “Y'all seem pretty close. Are you his mother?”

Yang scoffed. “Do I _look_ old enough to be his mother?”

“I meant no offense, but the resemblance is just so gosh darn uncanny, darlin’,” the reporter said.

Yang latched onto Mavros’s hand. “C’mon, kid. This interview is over,” she said sternly, dragging him away from the obnoxious reporter before the hole she’d dug her cowgirl self into got any deeper. “Just because we both have blond hair…” Yang muttered.

“And purple eyes,” Nora said.

Yang glowered at Nora. “What?” she asked.

“Your eyes. They’re both purple. His are a little darker, but it’s definitely in that same realm on the color wheel,” Nora explained, absolutely unfazed by the daggers Yang was optically trying to shoot at her. “Your hair is much more yellow than his, but there’s no denying you’re both blondes. I can understand her slipup.”

“Except for the age part!” Yang countered. “I would’ve had to have given birth to him when I was fourteen!”

Nora shrugged. “Not impossible.”

Yang pulled her fist back, ready to knock some sense into her delusional friend, but felt Blake’s firm grip close around her own and halt her attack.

“Come on, Yang. That woman was just plain rude. There’s no use taking it out on Nora,” Blake said.

Yang lowered her arm and took a calming breath. It wasn’t Nora’s fault Yang was a bit tetchier than usual with maternal matters—not to mention how out of whack her hormones were. Now might’ve been an excellent time to reveal her big secret, but she let the opportunity slip away as easily as the lungful of air she exhaled. “Wish I could fight in this tournament…” she said with a sigh. “Let out some frustration…”

“I’ll kick enough butt for both of us,” Mavros told her, helping to ebb said frustration. Yang even managed a smile.

 _That’s my boy,_ she thought jokingly.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ruby and Weiss agreed to wait in the wings with Mavros until it was his time to fight, leaving Nora, Blake, and Yang to find their reserved seats on the front row just in time for the opening light show. Yang had to admit the special effects were pretty impressive, but it was Dizzy World, so it’d be more shocking if they weren’t.

 _“Gooooooood afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!”_ the announcer called when the lights stopped strobing and the blaring music started to fade. _“Welcome to Dizzy World’s first ever Huntsmen Hardihood Scholarship Program! Today, we’ll see would-be heroes go head-to-head in all-out battles of epic proportions! So without further ado, let’s get this show underway! Our first contestant hails from the icy mountains of Atlas, where his training consists of simply finding ways to survive Mother Nature! Give it up for Setsuna Whittier!”_

The crowd roared to life with applause and whistles.

_“Our next contestant comes from the sandy dunes of Vacuo where he’s mastered the arts of scimitar wielding and sandcastle-making. Give it up for Tanner Downy!”_

“Wonder when Mavros will be up…” Nora said. She’d be wondering for a while. Ten matches passed—some more exciting than others—before Mavros’s name was called.

_“Hailing from our very own kingdom of Mistral and, ah ha, get this: ‘keeping his special skillset to himself,’ give it up for Mavros Black!”_

Yang spit the half-chewed piece of hotdog out of her mouth. “Did he just say _Black_?”

“You didn’t know his last name?” Blake asked.

“It never came up until now,” Yang explained, taking the paper napkin in her lap and wiping the ketchup and mustard off her chin.

“That could just be a coincidence… It’s a fairly common name. Even my name means black,” Blake pointed out.

Yang nodded absentmindedly, her eyes following the blond-haired Black as he made his way to the stage. The manner in which he walked—exuding a self-assured air about him with a smug smile slanting up the side of his face—reminded her of another Black she knew all too well.

“Am I just seeing things I want to see, or does he remind you of... Mercury?” Yang asked.

Nora and Blake both assessed Mavros, neither of them quick to answer with a yes or a no.

“I… do see some similarities…” Nora admitted. “But most all fighters get cocky like that before a fight. Don’t jump to conclusions, Yang.”

How could she not jump to conclusions when there was so much evidence staring her in the face?

Yang spent so much time rationalizing the potential relationship Mavros might have to Mercury that she completely missed the announcement for his opponent. She felt her jaw reflexively unhinge itself when her eyes fell upon the tall, brawny boy with muscles the size of bulbous cheeseburger buns standing center stage along with a much meeker-looking Mavros.

“Mavros has to fight that monster?!” Yang exclaimed. She stood out of her seat, scanning the crowd for some sort of official so she could call the fight while Mavros was still in one piece.

“Yang, relax,” Blake said, pulling her back down to her chair. “Give Mavros a chance.”

“Yeah,” Nora agreed. “How pissed would you be if someone had called one of your Vital Festival matches early?”

“You mean the one where I humiliated myself in front of the entire world because I fell victim for a stupid trap?” Yang asked.

Nora grimaced uncomfortably. “Touché. But just look at him; he doesn’t seem to need saving.”

Nora was right. Mavros looked as smug as Mercury had at the start of their fight six years ago. Yang relaxed her shoulders and settled back into her seat, but kept her shotgun gauntlets ready just in case.

 _“3… 2… 1… FIGHT!”_ the announcer bellowed, his voice echoing throughout the entire stadium.

Mavros’s muscle-headed opponent came barreling towards him with a mace as oversized as his biceps. Mavros easily sidestepped the big lug and sent a small weapon zinging after him, smacking him square in the back. Yang thought the weapon might’ve been a disc judging from its shape, but it came spinning back to Mavros the instant after it made contact. A boomerang maybe?

“What the hell is Mavros fighting with?” Yang asked, tired of trying to figure it out for herself.

“Looks like a yo-yo,” Nora said.

Yang’s eyes fluttered as her brow furrowed. “A yo-yo?”

Sure enough, the item that kept slamming into the big brute of a boy was indeed some kind of supercharged yo-yo, slightly larger and more destructive than the average children’s toy—and Mavros wielded it with ease. He was literally walking circles around his opponent, dodging attacks and countering with yo-yo tricks that looked as painful as they were entertaining.

At one point, Mavros slammed the yo-yo into the ground—barely missing his opponent—and created a massive dent in the stage. The boom that sounded with the collision told Yang that explosives were built into the childlike weapon.

“This is getting good,” Nora said with a gleam in her eye and a wicked smile.

After retracting his string, Mavros sent his yo-yo circling around his opponent’s feet, efficiently tripping him up and sending him falling to the ground in a thunderous crash. Yang thought it might’ve been a knockout, but the big brute still had some fight left in him. He latched onto the string encircling his ankles and pulled Mavros towards him.

Rather than let go, Mavros welcomed the tug and jumped headfirst into a diving summersault, initiating close combat the minute he stood out of his forward flip. Even without the use of his yo-yo, it was clear Mavros was a competent fighter. It was also clear he preferred using his feet when left to fight without his remarkable toy. Yang watched in awe as he kicked and flipped in a style almost identical to Mercury’s.

 _Coincidence my fake arm,_ Yang thought. _That boy is definitely Mercury’s flesh and blood._

After performing enough maneuvers to untangle his string, Mavros sent his yo-yo bashing into his opponent in an onslaught of consecutive hits. He didn’t let up until the brawny boy fell to the floor one last time.

The stadium erupted into cheers—much louder and more exhilarated than any previous ovations. Mavros had put on quite a show with his unique way of fighting. If the Knowbodies really were watching and gunning for special kids, Mavros easily just became their number one target.

 _“And in a stunning display of skill and yo-yo tricks, Mavros Black advances on to the semifinals!”_ the announcer proclaimed over the loudspeaker.

“Mavros Black…” Yang repeated in a voice much too quite to be heard over the cries of the crowd. She stood to applaud with everyone else, looking at the nine-and-a-quarter-year-old standing before her in a brand new light—a much dimmer light that served to cast him in shadows much darker than any that had been there before. “Just who exactly are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, dunnnnnn!!
> 
> I know this story was off to a slow start, but hopefully it's starting to intrigue you!


	8. Surprise

Yang would have to wait her turn before she’d get the chance to speak with Mavros about his oddly familiar fighting style and surname. Every news crew attending the tournament was circled around the yo-yo-slinging champ backstage, blinding him with camera flashes and tongue-tying him with question after question after question. Throughout all of the commotion, Yang was happy to see Ruby and Weiss on either side of their young client with textbook bodyguard postures and expressions just daring the reporters to try something funny. Despite how much distrust Yang now placed in Mavros, she still maintained a strange desire to protect him. Was it her maternal instincts kicking in already? God, she hoped not.

“How long have you been training with a yo-yo?” one reporter asked.

“Uh… since I was three,” Mavros said, using his fingers to do the math.

“Who taught you how to fight?” another reporter cut in.

“M-my dad. Mostly.” Mavros stuttered.

“Is your dad here now?”

“…No.”

“Where is he? Shouldn’t a father be here for his son’s moment of glory like that?”

“He… uh…”

“What about your mama? Where’d she run off to?” the reporter with the pink cowboy hat and red-rimmed glasses asked.

Yang’s body moved before her mind could tell it not to, shouldering through the mass of cameramen and microphones. “Sorry, guys. Mama coming through,” she grunted as she shoved her way forward. “And Mama says that’s enough questions for one day. You’ll all have another chance to interview him after he dominates the semifinals.”

“You’re his mother?” a male reporter asked in astonishment. “But you’re so young!”

Yang flashed him a wink accompanied by a coy smile. “Thanks for noticing,” she said. She truly was grateful not all reporters were as daft as the cowgirl one, but her gratitude didn’t stop her from putting an arm around Mavros’s shoulders and ushering him through the cluster of people still thrusting microphones in his face and fighting to have their questions answered.

“Thanks for getting me out of there,” Mavros said once he, Ruby, Weiss, and Yang were in a secluded backstage corridor. “I didn’t think they’d ever stop.”

“Don’t breathe out a sigh of relief just yet,” Yang warned as she stepped in front of Mavros with her hands on her hips. “It’s my turn to ask questions, and I want honest, thorough answers. No half-assed responses allowed, kid.”

Mavros raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be intimidating?”

Yang punched the wall behind Mavros’s head so hard she put a fist-sized hole in it. The young boy’s eyes opened wide in sheer shock, his pupils moving to follow her knuckles as she slowly withdrew them from the crumbling sheetrock that could’ve been his cute little face.

“Yang, cut it out!” Ruby demanded.

“Seriously,” Weiss said. “Threatening a child is one thing, but threatening a client—”

“He’s messing with me! With US!” Yang yelled so loud it echoed down the vacant corridor. “It can’t be a coincidence that his last name is Black and he fights just like Mercury. So just tell me your connection, and we can all move past this.”

“My connection?” Mavros repeated.

“Don’t play dumb,” Yang said flatly, locking eyes with the straight-faced boy still backed up against the wall. “Who is… or WAS your father?” Yang asked.

Mavros averted his eyes and hesitated—two signs that he was most certainly hiding something. “I could tell you, but I’m not sure what it would do…”

Yang narrowed her eyes. “What it would do? What do you mean by that?” she asked.

Mavros bit his bottom lip, unsure of how to answer.

“Come on Mavros. We’re your Huntresses—your guardians. You can trust us,” Ruby said encouragingly. Yang felt like they were playing good cop bad cop; and although Yang may have been acting like the bad cop, the reason it was such a cliché interrogation tactic was because it worked. “Any information you can give us might help us to better help you,” Ruby added when she saw Mavros’s poker face start to falter.

Mavros blew a stray blond hair out of his eyes. “Okay, I’ll talk,” he said. “But I can’t tell you everything, for both of our safety.”

“Safety? How could it be dangerous to divulge this information?” Weiss asked.

“You’ll understand once I tell you… At least, I hope you will,” Mavros said.

“Well, then, out with it already!” Yang snapped. Her patience was wearing thin and it wouldn’t be long before Mavros was called away for the bracketing of the semifinalists.

Mavros took a deep breath. “As you’ve all probably guessed, the reason I fight like Mercury Black and share his last name is because I’m related to him. He’s my father.”

It was the first time in her life Yang felt like fainting without enduring some type of physical injury. “F-father?” she repeated. “But you’re… But he…” Her words couldn’t keep up with the thoughts rushing through her head. Mercury had told her he was fifteen when he lost his virginity, which was about nine or so years ago, which was starting to make perfect sense.

“Mercury has a kid?!” Ruby squeaked out, quite obviously astonished. “Why hasn’t he ever mentioned you to us? You must’ve spent a lot of time training together—you move just like him!” Her eyes looked empathetically to her sister. “Yang? Did you know about this?”

The sound of her name drew Yang out of her daze and she slowly shook her head. “He never said anything.” Her breath caught in her throat as she clutched at her chest to help soothe the pain gradually getting more severe.

“That would make sense, seeing as how he doesn’t know about me either,” Mavros said.

Yang blinked in bewilderment. “He doesn’t know you? Does that mean…” Yang thought back to what little she knew about Mercury’s past, “…Katie is your mother?”

What other conclusion was there? Katie must’ve been pregnant before Mercury’s deadly fight with his cousin—before his uncle sawed off his legs and attached his robotic replacements—before Mercury burned down his house, killed his father, and left the only life he’d ever known behind. Maurice and Katie then raised Mavros and his brother (if he really had a brother) together, teaching them the ways of assassination and deception.

“Katie Gray is your mother and Maurice Black taught you how to fight.” It wasn’t even a question. Yang had it all figured out. It was the only explanation that pieced the entire puzzle together.

That’s why Yang felt like Mavros slammed his yo-yo into her head when he scrunched his eyes in confusion and said, “I’ve never met either one of those people.”

“Think about it, Yang. Why would Mavros come to us for help if Katie and Maurice were the ones who kidnapped his brother?” Ruby pointed out.

“Do you even have a brother?” Yang asked, looking to Mavros.

Mavros quickly nodded. “I do. And he really is in trouble. And so is my dad. So I still really need your help—ALL of your help. Honest!”

“How do you know Mercury is in trouble?” Weiss asked. “Can you see the future?”

A solemn mood shifted the young boy's expression to one of the utmost seriousness. “No. I’m from the future.”

That revelation added a few more prominent pieces to the incomplete puzzle Yang was working out in her head. “Is that even possible?” she asked.

“It is,” Mavros said without hesitation. “At least when your semblance is time manipulation.”

“You can go back and forth through time?” Ruby asked with so much eagerness and awe Yang could tell her next question was more likely to be about seeing such a rare semblance in action than finding out more about the pintsized time-traveler.

“I can,” Mavros confirmed. “I would show you, but my semblance is WAY stronger when I use it with my twin—his semblance is time manipulation, too. When we’re apart, our power is much weaker and it drains a whole lot faster. But when we’re together, we can span entire decades.”

“You’re serious,” Weiss noted in utter amazement. “I, of course, would love a demonstration before I’d be willing to believe you, but I also realize you need your strength for the tournament.”

Yang disagreed. “I need the demonstration,” she said flatly. “Why wait until now to tell us all this? Why didn’t you tell me you were Mercury’s future son when we first met?”

“I already told you! For our safety! More so mine than yours in that particular instance,” Mavros said, copping a bit of an attitude. “I needed to make sure my future was secure before I dropped such a huge tidbit.”

“And how’d you managed to SECURE your future in the past twenty four hours?” Yang asked mockingly.

Mavros slashed his arm out so fast Yang thought he was attacking her at first. She took a defensive step back before she realized all he was doing was pointing at her stomach.

“I needed to make sure I was already in the process of being born before I told you anything,” he said.

Yang paused as the realization of the kid’s words sunk in. His ash blond hair was the perfect blend of silver and gold just like his mauve colored eyes were the inevitable combination of light lilac and dark gray. His smirk and saunter had seemed so familiar because she’d seen Mercury smirk and saunter the same way for years. Not to mention his stubbornness—that was a Yang Xiao Long trademark if she’d ever seen one.

Her mouth opened slightly to release the soft gasp that accompanied her comprehension. “You’re…” she placed her palm over her abdomen, “MY son…”

Mavros smiled like the sweet boy Yang had taken him for up until his tournament fight. “Took you long enough to figure it out, Mom.”

“WHAT?!” Ruby and Weiss shrilled in unison.

“You’re pregnant?!” Weiss shrieked.

“I’m an aunty?!” Ruby squeaked.

Yang scratched the back of her head and laughed in embarrassment. “Kind of,” she said.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us sooner!” Weiss exclaimed.

“I found out for myself earlier today. This just didn’t seem like the right place or time to tell you,” Yang explained. “Surprise,” she added with an unenthusiastic display of spirit fingers and bent elbows.

In a flash of red rose petals, Ruby had her arms wrapped around Mavros’s head, holding him against her in what seemed more like a chokehold than a hug. “My first ever nephew! It’s so amazing to meet you!” she squealed in absolute delight. “What should you call me? Auntby? Rubty?”

“I just call you aunt Ruby, aunt Ruby,” Mavros murmured from his confinement.

Ruby released him only to hold him at arms length, look him in the eyes, and pull him back in for a second bone-cracking squeeze. “I just can’t believe you’re here!”

“I can’t either…” Yang admitted, her voice as distant as her mind-blown mind. “Why ARE you here?”

“I already told you that, too. Dad’s in trouble. So Jin and I came back to help him out,” Mavros said after fighting his way out of his aunt’s overly loving arms.

“If you’re here to help HIM, then why are you with ME?” Yang pressed.

Mavros looked at her as if the answer to that should’ve been obvious. “Because he needs you more than anybody.”

His words were simple, but they were enough to send Yang’s heavy heart soaring to the skies. Anytime she thought of Mercury since his departure, she eventually felt pain, worry, and ultimately uselessness. But the idea of someone so self-sufficient—someone so bent on doing things independently that he would risk both his life and her heart for the sake of going it alone—actually needing her the way she wanted him to need her made her feel lighter than air and brighter than the sunny dragon that was her natural disposition.

“You’re the light in his darkness, Mom,” Mavros continued. “And he’s not gonna make it out of this fight unless he has you to guide him.”

A soft smile crept its way across Yang’s lips. “Well, then, Mavros…” his name had a different weight to it now that she knew she’d played a part in choosing it. She looked him in his earnest eyes and resisted the urge to hug him. “Let’s go save your dad,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just use a classic Sailormoon/DBZ plot twist of bringing future children back in time to help their parents kick butt and save the day?
> 
> You're damn skippy I did!! (b^_^)b #sorrynotsorry


	9. And the Winner is...

Accepting Mavros as her future son was a bit surreal for Yang. What was even more surreal was knowing that if Mavros was indeed her son, then so was Jin. She went from being childless to pregnant to a mother of twins in a matter of hours. Although Remnant had probably experienced much stranger incidents throughout its history, this was topping the charts for Yang.

Part of her wanted to believe Mavros was lying—that he was some juvenile accomplice of Maurice Black out to dupe Yang and her team in order to get to Mercury—but that part was about the size of her pinky finger. The rest of her could somehow sense the connection she shared with the boy; almost like the baby growing within her recognized his future self. Not to mention that he was the spitting image of Mercury. Though he favored Yang’s big eyes and rounded cheeks among other features, his very manner of being was identical to the father he claimed.

The kid’s intentions seemed true enough, so Yang decided to trust him until he gave her a reason not to. She knew it was a decision she might very well come to regret, but she also knew she’d made way worse decisions in the past.

Nora took the news about as well as Yang thought she would; Yang was just glad her over-reactive friend didn’t seriously hurt herself from the way she hit the ground. Blake on the other hand seemed taken aback, but not shocked. Blake tended to pick up on subtle signs and hints fairly well, so she’d most likely had an inkling about Yang’s pregnancy even before Yang did. Whether she’d pieced her connection with Mavros together or not was an entirely different story. Mavros being Yang’s son was near impossible to fathom regardless of a person’s level of perception, so Yang didn’t blame her normally observant friend for missing that minor detail.

“I have some news for you, too,” Blake told Yang once they’d helped Nora to her feet. “I think I spotted that Katie lady. There’s a skybox directly across from us, and I saw a pale woman with a long, black braid step out onto its balcony not too long ago.”

Blake handed Yang a pair of Dizzy-World-themed binoculars she must’ve purchased from one of the arena’s many peddlers, and Yang used them to seek out the specified skybox. No black-haired beauty was anywhere to be found, though.

“She’ll probably be back once the fights start up again,” Blake said as Yang lowered the binoculars in disappointment. “Let’s just be sure to keep one eye on her and the other eye on Mavros.”

Despite how cross-eyed that might make them, Yang nodded in firm agreement. Katie had played a major part in Ruby’s attempted abduction and Katie was also one of the reasons Mercury disappeared. If Katie tried to take Mavros from her, too, there’d be no forgiving that bitch.

Trumpets sounded, announcing the start of the semifinals. Yang slowly sank into her seat, her eyes focusing on the skybox straight ahead as the stadium’s lights dimmed and the stage lights grew brighter.

“Goooooood evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to HiTS! That stands for Huntsmen in Training Scholarship Program!”

“The P is silent,” Yang joked, making Nora and Blake giggle.

“We are down to our final eight contestants!” the announcer continued, pausing to give the audience time to applaud as well as the semifinalists time to take the stage. “This is Dizzy World’s first year hosting the HiTS tournament, but I would be absolutely astonished if it turned out to be the last! We’ve seen some amazing displays of talent on the stage today, and if I have to go to bed knowing my future safety is in the hands of these young, would-be Hunters, I know I’ll sleep soundly!”

Yang’s whole body tensed when the announcer chose the word ‘future,’ but then she realized the context he was using it in and eased back into her seat. “For a second, I thought they knew about Mavros,” she said.

Blake hummed out a small laugh. “I think his secret’s safe,” she whispered. “If I didn’t know you and Mercury, I’d have a hard time believing it myself.”

Yang wasn’t sure why, but that made her smile. Was she proud her child was so apparently hers? Or was it because he was so apparently hers AND Mercury’s? Her answer came to her when the announcer started interviewing Mavros.

“What brought you to the tournament today?” the announcer asked.

“An airship and a train,” he answered honestly, instigating a bout of laughter from the entire audience.

“Well, I supposed that’s true,” the announcer admitted with a good-humored chuckle of his own, “but I was implying what’s driving you—what makes you WANT to fight?”

Despite how difficult it must’ve been to find her in the crowd with all of the blinding lights shining in his face, Mavros looked straight at Yang when he answered. “My family,” he said. “They mean everything to me, so I want to make sure I do everything in my power to keep them safe.”

The crowd responded with a resounding “Awww.” Even the announcer seemed touched. “Well, you’re doing a great job so far,” he said. “If you move on past the semifinals, you’ll be one step closer to obtaining private school training and keeping your family members the safest they’ve ever been!”

Or one step closer to discovering the true motives of the Knowbodies and where their main base of operations was located. Either or, really.

The semifinals were designed for competitors to team up for two-on-two battles. Mavros was paired with an eleven-year-old who primarily fought with a sword and shield while their opposing team comprised of two twelve-year-old gunslingers. The first gunslinger favored a revolver that turned into a short, thick sword, while the second wielded dual pistols that could break apart and extend into nunchakus.

“The style Mavros fights with is better suited for closer combat,” Blake noted as the rest of the competitors left the stage. “I wonder how he’ll do against long-range weaponry...”

Blake didn’t wonder for long. Mavros proved just as skillful against the gunslingers as he did against the mace-wielding mountain from his previous match.

The face of his yo-yo could expand and be used as a shield, which made deflecting bullets and closing in on his adversaries a basic cakewalk. Also in shield mode, the yo-yo was capable of producing bright white light pellets that looked fairly similar to the boot bullets Mercury used. Because Mavros had yet to reveal his weapon’s multiple functions, his opponents were thrown off their game the second he started charging forward. All his partner had to do was stand and watch while Mavros made quick work of the rival team and advanced both of them on to the final match.

After a longer, less impressive fight between the other competitors, the final four contestants took the stage. The announcer reintroduced each of the remaining competitors individually, and Mavros received the loudest cheers by far. Although Yang knew the kid was focused on the mission at hand, she was happy to see him smiling and waving at the crowd that obviously adored him. If he was going to intentionally get kidnapped, he might as well have fun with it.

During Mavros’s moment in the spotlight, Yang’s eyes instinctively traveled to skybox Blake told her about. She raised Blake’s binoculars to her eyes and there—leaning on the railing of the balcony—she saw a familiar woman dressed in gray with a sheen, black braid falling over her shoulder.

“Katie…” Yang whispered.

“Katie?” Blake echoed, her attention immediately drawn to the skybox in the distance. Yang was surprised Blake managed to hear her over the roar of the audience still going gaga over Mavros. Even Nora was too caught up in cheering to notice how silent and still her two friends had become.

“What do we do?” Blake asked.

“Nothing,” Yang said, calmly returning Blake’s binoculars to her.

“Nothing? But…”

“Mavros has Weiss’s tracker on him,” Yang reminded her. “He knows what’s at stake, and he’s already said he’s fine with it. Now we just have to hope Katie takes the bait… we should probably let Weiss and Ruby know, though.”

Blake nodded and resumed clapping while Yang pulled out her scroll and texted Ruby:

KATIE IS HERE. WE HAVE VISUAL CONFIRMATION. STAY ALERT.

After hitting the send button, Yang slipped her scroll back into its holding pouch and rejoined the applause. Their mission now was to blend in and remain unnoticed until the Knowbodies made their move.

“I hope Katie can’t see me as easily as I can see her,” Yang said.

Blake shook her head. “We found Katie because we were looking for her. Katie is looking for potential targets. I guarantee her focus is on the stage, not the stands.”

Blake must’ve been right, because if Katie had spotted Yang, she didn’t give a fat rat’s ass. She stayed propped against her balcony’s railing, seemingly absorbed in what was going on well into the announcer’s explanation of how the final match worked.

“The final match of HiTS will be a melee type battle in which all competitors will go at it in a free-for-all to determine who among them is the best of the best and worthy of a slot at one of the kingdom’s finest fighting schools!” the announcer proclaimed. “Fighters, to your marks!”

Each boy took his spot at one of the four corners of the stage before a ten-second countdown began. Yang focused on the screen featuring Mavros, watching as his gloved fingers wiggled in anticipation.

A buzzer sounded and all four combatants charged towards the center of the stage. It wasn’t until they were a bit closer that Yang realized the other three competitors had it out for Mavros. The trio began using joint attacks against the singled-out yo-yo slinger the second they were in range. Mavros was thrown by their combined strength at first, but easily switched to a defensive strategy until he had enough information to take them down one by one. Once again, Mavros proved that he did, indeed, operate just like his father.

Mavros transformed his yo-yo into its shield form and used it to block and parry as best he could, eventually throwing it on the ground and using it as a makeshift skateboard to slide out of harm’s way. The crowd went nuts for that move.

One of his opponents was faster than the others—a ten-year-old with an axe shotgun that reminded Yang of a weapon one of her old professors from Beacon favored. Mavros found a way to turn the kid’s speed against him, running until they were too far away for the other competitors to lend a hand. Mavros switched his shield back to its yo-yo form and took the axe kid out so fast and efficiently he might as well have been brushing dirt off his shoulder.

One competitor made the mistake of trying to avenge his fallen comrade in a blind rage, but his blindness made him all the easier to land vital hits on. Three yo-yo tricks later, the second finalist was down for the count.

And then there were two.

Mavros squared off with the final competitor, smirking just like his father would in that situation. Yang found herself smiling as well. Was this what if felt like to be a proud parent? She kind of liked it.

Before she could stop herself, Yang was on her feet, throwing a fist in the air. “Kick his butt, Mav! Show him what you can do!” she bellowed.

Nora and Blake looked at Yang with amused expressions before standing up to join her.

Almost as if Mavros could hear their cheers above the rest of the rambunctious crowd, his smirk grew and he attacked. It should’ve been a shutout, but his last opponent proved he had much more skill than the other finalists by fending off all of Mavros’s maneuvers. The unruffled opponent soon turned his broadsword into a giant rifle that was probably making Ruby’s breath catch in her throat if she was watching from behind the scenes. Once the gunblade started firing, Mavros tumbled out of the way before switching to his shield and using it the same way he had in his previous match against the gunslingers.

Both boys moved closer and switched to their respective weapon’s primary mode, battling yo-yo versus broadsword. Yang could feel her voice starting to go hoarse from how loud she was screaming.

Just when it seemed like Mavros had the upper hand, his opponent bent back in an impressive dodge and stepped out of it with a mighty lunge of his sword. It looked like it was going to be a direct hit—in fact it SHOULD’VE been a direct hit—but it wasn’t. In the blink of an eye, Mavros went from being in front of his opponent to directly behind him. Before anyone knew what was going on, Mavros was bludgeoning the young swordsman with repeated yo-yo smacks until the latter collapsed in defeat.

“MAVROS BLACK WINS!” the announcer proclaimed, his energetic voice echoing throughout the entire arena.

“Woah-oh-oh!! Did he just teleport?!” Nora exclaimed.

A light bulb clicked in Yang’s head. “I think he… just used his semblance. He time-traveled,” she said.

Nora whistled in amazement. “I guess that makes his claims official. He really is from the future.” 

The last of Yang’s doubt disintegrated as she looked on at the worn yet smiling nine-and-a-quarter-year-old in his triumphant moment. “Yeah… I guess he is,” she agreed. Just as Nora said, it was official: Mavros Black was Yang’s future son, and his future mother couldn’t be more proud of him.

In all of the excitement, Yang forgot to keep track of Katie. The second the stadium lights went out and the entire arena went pitch dark, she remembered.

“Don’t move,” she heard Blake’s voice through the darkness. “I know it’s counterintuitive, but we want Mavros to be taken.”

Yang knew that, but both her human and mechanical fingers balled into fists regardless. Through the shrieks of panic, Yang strained to detect any sign of a scuffle in the direction of the stage, however it was no use. 

“Blake, can you hear anything?” Yang asked, thinking her Faunus friend might have better luck with her cat ears.

“Nothing useful. There’s too much going on,” Blake said.

By the time the lights came back up, all four finalists had vanished from the stage, Mavros included. The plan was working. Now they just had to pray the kidnappers stayed oblivious to the tracker hidden in the hood of the kid’s jacket.

Yang’s scroll went off, managing to get one solid ring out before Yang answered. “We’ll meet you at the exit!” she said the second she accepted Ruby’s call.

“Bad idea! Everyone will be heading towards the exits now! If you can manage it, meet us at the backstage loading dock!” Ruby said.

Yang clicked her scroll shut and looked to Blake and Nora. “You heard the lady. Let’s get to the loading dock.”

It was tough fighting through the pack of panic-stricken people at first, but once they made it backstage, it was smooth sailing. The path to the loading dock was appropriately marked by signs indicating where to find all major parts of the arena, so they made it there in much better time than Yang thought they would.

“What took you so long?” Ruby asked upon their arrival. Apparently she wasn’t near as impressed with their time as Yang was.

“Uh… the swarm of people going in the OPPOSITE direction of us,” Nora deadpanned.

Ruby flicked her hand as a means to brush such a detail away. “Whatever. We have to go. Now! Mavros is on the move!”

“And how do you propose we go?” Yang asked.

Right on cue, a trendy blue sports car came zipping down the street. It drifted as it turned and screeched to a perfect stop right in front of the loading dock. The tinted window on the passenger’s side slowly slid down, revealing the reckless driver to be none other than Weiss Schnee.

“Get in, losers. We’re going shopping,” she said with a sly smile.

“What?”

Weiss sighed. “Never mind. Just get in!”

The rest of team RWBYN piled in the aerodynamic car and sped away faster than Yang could say, “Was that a movie reference?”

“Where is he now?” Blake asked as Weiss ran her second red light.

“Only a few miles away. They didn’t mess around, that’s for sure,” Ruby said from the passenger seat, looking down at the tracking device in her lap.

“Seatbelts, please,” Weiss requested as she ran her third red light.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

They followed the tracker long into the night—only stopping to get gas and switch drivers when Weiss started falling asleep behind the wheel. Yang was driving and the only one awake when the tracker finally came to a stop.

They were a ways into the mountains north of Windpath. Snow had started to fall, but the roads were still warm enough to prevent most of it from sticking. Trees as tall as communication towers stretched to the sky along the hilly trail, the morning sun barely beginning to shine through their branches when Yang slowed the car to a complete stop.

Ruby yawned herself awake. “Are we there yet?” she squeaked out.

“Yes,” Blake confirmed. “Although, I’m not really sure where THERE is.”

“It’s a mile away from here,” Yang said. “I don’t think they’d hand over Mavros and Jin if we just drove up to the front door and knocked, so I say we park here and find a sneakier way in—ninja style.”

“I do like ninjas,” Nora confessed.

“Wait. I have a plan B,” Weiss said, looking to Ruby. “You’re the fastest one out of all of us, Ruby. Why don’t you dash back to Windpath and alert the authorities? That way if something happens to us, we’ll have some backup on the way.”

“Yee of such little faith,” Yang said, shaking her head. “You’re already thinking we’ll fail?”

“I’m just planning ahead!” Weiss said defensively. “We’re Huntresses, not police officers. At the end of the day, the only ones who can bring these perpetrators to proper justice is the law. We’re just here to search and rescue.”

“She’s right. It makes sense for one of us to go back for help. It couldn’t hurt,” Blake said.

Ruby nodded. “Okay. I’m on it… but would it be okay if I take the car? It was a ten-hour drive out here, and I really don’t think my semblance will hold out that long. Plus… it’s kinda chilly outside.”

Yang dangled the keys in front of her sister’s face. “Just make sure you drive safe. Don’t go too fast around turns and keep your foot hovering over the brake while going downhill.”

“I thought you were Mav’s mom, not mine,” Ruby retorted as she snatched the car keys from Yang’s fingers.

Once Ruby was sure she knew the location and how to get back to Windpath, she bid her teammates farewell and drove out of sight.

“I really hope she doesn’t wreck that car… It’ll ruin my insurance,” Weiss said as she watched Ruby swerve away.

“I’m gonna need you to stop being a Debbie Downer,” Yang said. “Only positive thoughts from now on.”

“I’m positive she’s going to wreck that beautiful vehicle,” Weiss said with one last, longing look at the car in question before turning to walk towards their objective. “And I’m positive we’re about to be in over our heads, so brace yourselves, ladies.”

“Guess that makes us team NWBY without Ruby, huh? Like newbie?” Nora pointed out.

Yang snorted with laughter. “Team NWBY, stay focused,” she ordered. “We’re walking straight into a lions’ den.”

“I’ll take lions over crazed killers any day,” Blake said.

Regardless of what they would take, they were about to find out what they would get, and part of Yang hoped they would get the longer end of the stick for once. It was damn time for things to go their way.

“I hope Mavros is all right,” Nora said as they marched through the thicket of trees, the fallen leaves crunching underneath every footstep.

“He’ll be fine,” Weiss said positively. “He’s Yang’s son, isn’t he? It’s gonna take more than a swarm of kidnappers to take that boy out.”

Yang laughed, her breath warm enough to be seen floating up through the icy air. “He’s Mercury’s son, too,” Yang reminded them. “Which makes me feel more sympathy for the kid’s captors than for the kid.”


	10. Powerless

Yang wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find once they reached their destination, but a giant golden palace with elaborate works of art carved into every wall, pillar, and door definitely had yet to cross her mind.

“Wow… is this all one building, or is it its own city?” Nora asked in awe as team NWBY stood atop a cliff overlooking the massive metal stronghold gleaming brilliantly in the morning light.

“This looks even bigger than the Schnee estate,” Yang said—a sentence she didn’t think would ever leave her lips. With a deep breath and a determined mindset, Yang faced her teammates. “Mavros is waiting on us. We need to get a move on.”

“Where do we even start?” Weiss asked. 

Blake, who’d been making use of her patented Dizzy World binoculars again, scanned the golden fortress. “Looks like there’s an unguarded turret towards the back of the castle,” she said, pointing in the direction of her discovery. “If Weiss can use her glyphs to get us up the walls, we can make it in.”

“Awesome job, Blake!” Yang said, high-fiving her best friend. “Unfortunately, since we don’t know anything about the layout of this place, we’ll have to play this mission by ear. But I have a good feeling we’ll be okay.”

“Oh, a good feeling is so much more reassuring than a solid plan,” Weiss said mockingly. “But it’s better than nothing, so let’s act on it.”

The quartet of Huntresses used the trees on the outskirts of the cliff for cover and hustled toward the back of the golden palace. Once they reached the unguarded sector Blake managed to spot, Weiss activated her semblance and created a line of white glyphs along the sleek wall. Using a blast from her gauntlets to propel her even further, Yang jumped from the cliff. Thanks to the glyphs, she was able to plant her feet on the wall dart straight up it. Nora, Blake and Weiss were right behind her.

Once the girls made it over the side of the turret, they ducked below its ledge and paused, listening for any signs indicating they’d been detected. When all was silent for well over thirty seconds, all four girls breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Now what?” Nora whispered, looking to Yang for guidance. Was Yang the leader of this mission? She supposed she was. It was strange not having her sister around to call the shots for a group mission, but at the same time motivating. There was a lot riding on her decisions, so she had to try and think them through—at least a little more than she normally would.

“It’ll be easier to move around if we had disguises…” Yang said. “Let’s try and find some guards lax enough to steal some uniforms from!”

One turret away, they managed to locate such guards playing a board game instead of guarding their post. It was a fortunate finding to be sure, but there were unfortunately only three guards, leaving only three outfits after the girls knocked them out cold.

“Should we try and jump a fourth one?” Nora asked, as she removed the gilded boots from one of the unconscious men. Their uniforms had just as much gold in them as the rest of the palace.

“Actually, this is perfect,” Yang said. “I’ll act as your captive, and you three can take me to the holding cell for prisoners.”

“That’s a pretty gutsy move…” Blake said, obviously reluctant to agree with such a strategy.

“It’s the best one we can make in this situation, though. The tracker is able to tell us Mavros is here, but it can’t tell us exactly WHERE in here. This place is way too big to check every single room—so the quickest way to find the hostages is to act like one,” Yang said decisively. She put her wrists together and held them up in front of her face. “So put on your uniforms, tie me up, and let’s get this show on the road!”

It was adorable how big Nora’s uniform was on her—her head looked completely diminutive in comparison to the size of her shoulder pads. Blake and Weiss managed to fill their disguises out marginally better, but there was a sinking feeling in Yang’s stomach that they all looked suspicious as fuck. Perhaps her plan wasn’t as sound in actuality as it had been in her head.

“You three! Where do you think you’re going?”

Yang flinched when she heard the commanding voice of another guard and braced herself for the worst.

“We found this little canary pecking around outside the palace,” Blake said in a gruff voice, turning Yang around and shoving her forward so the inquiring guard could get a better look at their catch. Weiss kept a firm grip on the rope confining Yang, probably more so out of fear than a desire to put on a decent act.

“Wow…” the guard said. “A girl this gorgeous has to be brought before the king.”

Yang felt as relieved as she did flattered. Their disguises worked, AND he thought she was hot! That was the best scenario they could’ve hoped for.

“R-right. The king! Of course. That’s where we were taking her,” Blake said, her gruffness wavering ever so slightly.

“Then stop going towards the holding cells and start making your way to the throne room,” the guard said, pointing in the opposite direction.

“Roger that,” Blake replied with a salute. She gave Yang another good shove, this time as a means to urge her to walk.

“That was a close one,” Nora whispered once they made it down the next corridor.

“This place has a king? How archaic are these people?” Weiss asked.

“Shit… we were heading in the right direction,” Yang complained. “At least we have an idea of where the holding cells are now… If I get separated from you guys, you have to promise me you’ll go after Mavros and Jin before you’ll go after me. Understood?”

There was a momentary pause before all three of her teammates nodded in agreement.

Finding the throne room was a much easier task than finding the holding cells. They just had to follow the lavishness. If one path looked more spectacular than another, it meant that was the way they needed to be going. Blank walls turned into finely crafted tapestries and simple lighting turned into candelabras and chandeliers. They also just needed to look for which hallway had the most guards, for the last passage leading up to the throne room’s oaken double doors was teeming with the castle’s golden clad protectors.

“We’ve brought the king a new… prisoner,” Blake said in her gruff voice again. Yang wasn’t sure why Blake had chosen to disguise the way she talked—it was still fairly evident she was a woman and it was even more evident that there were other female guards apart from them. But if it helped Blake get into character, she wasn’t going to stop her from doing it. Plus, none of the other guards seemed to suspect them—thank the four maidens.

Following Blake’s announcement, the guards joined together and opened the thick double doors, revealing a large, open-air space that felt more like a courtyard than a throne room. Although the room may have lacked a ceiling, it made up for it with everything else. Vases with intricate stories painted across them were evenly distributed along the perimeter, stunning statues served as the pedestals for blazing fires that lined the main walkway, and any part of the ground that wasn’t covered by plush, red and gold carpet was blossoming with beautiful red and gold flowers. Yang had to hand it to the castle’s designers. They’d really outdone themselves.

“What’s this?” a booming voice bellowed from across the courtyard. “I thought our latest shipment from Vale wouldn’t be in for another two weeks.”

Yang crinkled her nose at the word shipment, disgusted at the thought of being referred to as merchandise as opposed to a person.

“It still is, my king!” Nora proclaimed, deciding to give Blake a break from doing all the talking. “We found this little harpy gallivanting around outside the palace. I believe she was lost, sire.”

Yang gave Nora a glare—wondering how she went from a cute canary to a gallivanting harpy—but soon turned her attention to the owner of the loud and powerful voice that had questioned them.

He was an older man with a long beard as curly and silver as the hair sprouting from his head. He wore golden armor on his shoulders connected to a cape as red as the tulips near Yang’s toes. His breastplate favored his left side—as did the cape—revealing a bare and chiseled chest on his right, and the thing he wore about his waist looked like some type of fancy man-skirt to Yang. The only thing that took him from a cross-dresser to a king was the crown atop his curly head fashioned in the shape of two golden bullhorns.

The king stood from his ornate seat, a smile clear as day showing through his long, twisted beard. “Bring the lost little lamb to me,” he declared.

Weiss gently tugged at the rope binding Yang’s wrists and all four members of team NWBY approached the dais. As they got closer, Yang noticed three people accompanying the king on the platform of his throne. Standing to the king’s right was none other than Katie and Argus, both donning faces that were quite visibly perplexed. To the king’s left sat a crimson-haired young man whose posture suggested he’d been very bored, yet whose vivid green eyes suggested such boredom vanished the moment they entered the room.

“She’s definitely a looker,” the king said after assessing Yang. “Do you have any gifts?”

Yang grimaced. “I… I wasn’t planning on coming… I didn’t realize I needed to bring anything,” she said in what she hoped was an innocent voice.

The king let out a hearty guffaw. “No, child. I didn’t mean tangible gifts. I meant talents of your own.”

“If I may speak, King Mynn,” Katie said, taking a step forward.

“You may,” King Mynn replied, though his eyes stayed focused on Yang without giving Katie so much as a glance.

“This woman was one of the ones responsible for our mishap in Patch, sire,” Katie explained. “She’s a trained Huntress, capable of great destruction. I propose we execute her immediately before she’s given the chance to cause anymore damage.”

Yang’s breath caught in her throat as the air about her comrades got much tenser. Luckily, none of them lost their cool.

King Mynn’s eyebrows raised so high the horns of his crown rose up right along with them. “Is that so?” he asked. “I find it funny that three of my best trained assassins couldn’t take down such a troublesome girl, yet three of my greenest grunts managed to do just that.”

“It’s because of you, your majesty,” Weiss said, taking a knee and bowing. “Were it not for you, I wouldn’t have the willpower to do anything. Your strength gives me strength, sire, and I feel like I’m capable of—”

King Mynn let out another hearty laugh. “What a kiss-ass!” he roared. “There are some buns in the bakery if you wish to kiss those as well!”

Weiss stood, but continued to bow her head. “My apologies, sire. I only meant to thank you for all you do to inspire us.”

It was quick thinking—great thinking, actually—and Yang had to give Weiss props for finding the nerve to say something so ballsy to someone she barely knew anything about. They were one wrong word away from being found out. Fortunately, Weiss’s words managed to distance them from that one wrong one.

“Your actions are thanks enough,” King Mynn said as he descended the staircase of the dais and approached Yang. He took her face between his sausage-like fingers and turned her head. “She truly is a beauty. She’s exactly the kind of girl we’ve been searching for.” He turned to look at Nora. “Is she a virgin?”

Yang gulped. Nora hesitated. Yang wasn’t sure why; she knew Nora knew the answer to that. Perhaps she was debating on what King Mynn wanted to hear.

“As far as I know…” Nora said quietly.

Yang wish she’d had one free hand to smack herself in the head with. Lying to a king about something like that probably wasn’t a smart move. Then again, how would a guard who didn’t know her know something like that?

“Excellent!” King Mynn shouted. “I think I’ve decided to make this girl one of my wives!”

“But, my lord, this woman is the reason last month’s shipment wasn’t met!” Katie argued. “She doesn’t deserve—”

“Silence!” King Mynn thundered, cutting Katie off with a wave of his hand. “Whatever offenses she’s committed against you were due to your own incompetence,” he said, causing Katie to retract the step forward she’d taken earlier. “She’s mine now, and I declare that she be made one of my wives!”

“H-hold on a second!” Yang said when she got over the shock of what was happening and managed to find her voice. “I really don’t think I’m marriage material. I mean, look at me. Do I look like a queen to you?”

“No,” said the crimson-haired man lounging in the smaller throne next to the king’s. “You look like a princess.” He lazily rose out of his seat like a snake uncoiling itself and stood at the edge of the dais. “With all due respect, father, may I ask that she be made my bride instead?”

King Mynn turned to face his apparent son. “You… you’ve taken an interest in this girl? But you’ve never taken an interest in any girl. In fact, I was starting to think you were gay!”

The prince rolled his bright green eyes. “Sorry to disappoint, father, but being picky is not evidence for someone’s sexual preference.” He looked to Yang. “I like gold,” he continued. “And I’ve never seen hair as golden as hers.”

King Mynn ran up the stairs of the dais and captured his son in a hug so powerful it lifted the younger royal off his feet. “My boy is growing up! I’m so proud of you!” After their (touching?) father-son moment, King Mynn’s voice rang out across the courtyard as he said, “Start the preparations! The first prince, Cornell, is to be wed at sunset!”

“Wah—sunset?!” Yang exclaimed. “You mean sunset three weeks from now, right?!”

“Ha ha! Such spunk she has!” the king said with a chuckle.

A superior officer took the rope binding Yang’s hands from Weiss and Yang was led away from the courtyard to the palace’s bathhouse. There, she was stripped of her clothes by an all-female group of servants and scrubbed from top to bottom in some of the best smelling bath water she’d ever set foot in. She ignored the gasps and shocked expressions her mechanical arm received upon its discovery, silently wondering if the prince would still want her if he knew such a huge piece of her was missing. The parts of her that weren't made of metal were as soft as silk when she emerged from the gigantic tub, and her hair came out feeling just as silky when it finished drying. The callouses on her hands and feet were scraped away and her nails were polished with the same red hue decorating the rest of the palace. They even polished and greased her prosthetic, going so far as to paint white and red flower blossoms along its bright yellow casing that Yang surprisingly wound up approving of. They were like cute little tattoos.

After a deep tissue massage that was such a mixture of pain and pleasure she almost thought she was having sex with Mercury, Yang was finally left alone. She lied facedown on the massage table, breathing in the incense burning in the corner of the darkened room and listening to the sounds of the birds chirping outside the palace. So much had happened, yet the day was still so young. If she hurried, she might still be able to find Mavros and Jin and get the hell out of there before the wedding ceremony. But how? 

Yang hopped off the massage table and cracked the door open. The moment she did, a handful of serving maids surrounded the door like a pack of dogs begging for a morsel of meat. She quickly shut the door tight, letting out a heavy sigh. There was no other way out of the room. If she’d had her gauntlets, she could’ve just blasted through a wall and made her own exit, but the bathhouse attendants had been kind enough to remove her weapons and hide them away from her.

Yang pressed her back against the door as she shut her eyes and slid down to the floor. She hoped Nora, Blake, and Weiss were having better luck coming up with a new escape plan than she was.

After her million-Lien-makeover, Yang was introduced to her dancing instructor.

“The Dance of the Fated is an ancient wedding ritual passed down through the Concrete’s royal family for generations!” the dancing mistress said in a tone so snooty Yang felt her self-confidence diminish little by little every time the hook-nosed woman spoke.

Apparently, the Concretes were the royal family Yang was hours away from marrying into, and they’d played a much larger role in Remnant’s history back before the great war. After being forced into isolation, the Concretes started dealing in illegal substances and human trafficking, and were now one of the biggest names in the business, maintaining their royal titles, but adding words like ‘slave’ and ‘drug’ before them.

“You’re so lucky prince Cornell has chosen you to be his,” Yang had been told all day. “The first bride is always the one granted the most authority.” The only kind of authority Yang wanted was the kind that warranted her access to the holding cells and the freedom to leave without getting married.

“No, no, no!” the dance mistress snapped after the umpteenth time Yang made a wrong move. “You’re supposed to turn INTO his arms—not away! This dance is about falling in love! How can you fall in love with someone if you’re running away from him?!”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder?” Yang answered with a shrug and a bashful smile.

The dance mistress slapped Yang’s back with her whipping switch, causing Yang’s joking mentality to straighten itself out as quick as her spine did in response to the strike.

“From. The. Top,” the dancing mistress instructed. “And this time, no mistakes.”

Essentially, the Dance of the Fated was the same thing as saying “I do,” in typical marriages. It was what sealed the deal, even ending in a kiss just like any other wedding ceremony. It began with the bride and groom dancing a duet before being given masks that completely hid everything but their eyes. A flood of other dancers in similar attire and masks would then surround them and try to vie for their attention as their primary dance partner. If the bride and groom could successfully find their way back to one another by the song’s end, they would share the Kiss of the Fated and become husband and wife.

In any other circumstance, Yang would find the whole thing sickeningly sweet and romantic, but because it was HER dancing and HER getting married, she found it unbelievably terrifying.

“Don’t worry. It sounds like it’ll be hard to find the prince, but it’ll be easy,” one of the handmaids assured her while brushing her hair after her dance lesson. “All of the dancers will be servants or members of the royal court. They’ll do more to guide you to each other than to stop you from finding one another.”

“Terrific…” Yang muttered as she felt her last shred of hope smother into nothingness.

She was planning on dancing with whichever partner distracted her first for the remainder of the dance, but if her partner was more adamant about reuniting her with the prince than keeping her for himself, then there was nothing she could do. She was completely powerless and it felt absolutely awful.

If Weiss, Blake, and Nora were doing as Yang asked of them, then they were working on freeing Mavros and Jin, not Yang. She couldn’t be mad, though—it’s what she told them to do if they got separated.

Her best bet now was for Ruby to arrive with reinforcements. The problem there was the twenty hours it would take Ruby to get to the city and back, and that wasn’t including the time it would take to convince the authorities to believe her story. It’d be well after sunset before her sister would make her return—much too late to do anything about the wedding.

~I’m royally screwed… or about to be, anyway~ Yang thought to herself, too tired to laugh at her pun as she collapsed on the bed of her private chamber.

She should’ve been searching for secret passageways or thinking of ideas to distract the guards outside her door or underneath her window, but she’d been doing those things all day to no avail. Yang was so mentally drained from her failures and physically drained from her dance lesson that she’d finally surrendered to the inevitable truth: she was getting married to the prince of the black market, and there was nothing she could do about it.

She turned her head and looked at the early afternoon sun shining through her window.

~It won’t be long now…~ she thought to herself. ~Maybe if I get some sleep, a good idea will come to me.~

She hadn’t slept much during the drive there, and she sure as hell hadn’t slept since entering the palace. She hoped all her body needed was a quick recharge to perk her right back up.

She closed her eyes, and was almost out instantly, but not before a brief image of Mercury flashed through her mind.

“I’m sorry…” she whispered aloud as she drifted to sleep and his image faded away. “Mercury… I’m so sorry, but I don’t think I can wait for you after all…”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sunset came much too soon. Yang was awoken to the sounds of handmaids scuttling into her chamber, carrying makeup, accessories, and one of the hottest dresses Yang had ever seen. This little ditty wasn’t a typical wedding gown. It was short, revealing, fire-engine-red, and Yang loved every stitch sewn into it. The idea of strutting around in such a masterpiece almost made her excited about the event she was wearing it to. Almost, but not quite.

Even after seeing the finished product in her chamber’s full-length mirror, she couldn’t help but frown at the dazzling beauty staring back at her. She looked the best she’d ever looked, but it was all for a man she didn’t love. Everything about this felt so wrong. Her chest started to sting and her eyes started to water. The second the handmaids spotted the tears, they were surrounding Yang with more powder and mascara to reapply the makeup her sadness was washing away.

“It’s normal to cry on your wedding day,” one of the serving girls said sweetly.

Yang laughed at how horribly her tears had been misinterpreted. “I’ll try to contain myself,” she said. Her tone was mocking, but no one seemed to notice. Everyone thought Yang must’ve been the happiest girl on the planet. How could she not be? She’d evaded Katie’s proposal for immediate execution, she was about to become a princess, and she was also about to lose her mind.

She felt her fingernails dig into her palms, and suddenly she remembered that her gauntlets weren’t her only weapons; her fists were always with her. She was Yang fucking Xiao Long, and if she couldn’t save herself from this situation, then she deserved whatever horrible arranged marriage she wound up in.

Pushing the handmaids away, Yang jumped over her bed and burst through the door. She sped past the guards, punching a pair that blocked her way and continuing down the hall. She let instinct take over and guide her in what she hoped was the right direction. She could hear the sounds of the guards behind her alerting others, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was finding Mavros and Jin before someone like Katie and Argus found her.

She hastily yanked off her strappy high heels as she ran, picking up a great deal of speed once her feet were free of the footwear. She managed to make it back to the corridor she and her team had found earlier—the one the guard said led to the holding cells. Determined, she rushed through the hall, turning the second she saw a stone staircase winding its way down into the depths of the palace. If that didn’t scream: This way to dungeon —>, Yang didn’t know what did.

Her adrenaline rush was so exhilarating Yang didn’t think anything could stop her. That was before she collided with the man awaiting her at the bottom of the spiral staircase.

She fell back and landed on the last few steps, catching herself with her elbows as she regained her bearings. When her eyes started to focus again, they were gazing at a tall and tan man with slick white hair and a finely trimmed goatee. He was burly enough to block the entire doorway and stood with his arms folded and his feet parted. A familiar bulky gray tool belt was wrapped around his waist, and the moment Yang realized whom she’d rammed into, her adrenaline rush was zapped.

“Maurice…” Yang said, panting as she caught her breath.

“Oh, good. You remember me,” Maurice said with a grin. “That’ll make this a whole lot easier.”

Maurice crouched down so that he was at eye-level with Yang, resting his muscular arms on his thick kneecaps. “I’m not sure if Mercury told you anything about me—”

“He has,” Yang said flatly, making Maurice pause and blink before regaining his arrogant composure.

“Then you should know why you should get your pretty little self back up those stairs and marry my benefactor’s son,” he said with a voice so greasy he could’ve slicked his stark white hair back with it.

“Why?” Yang countered, narrowing her eyes. “Why do you care if I marry some pompous prince or not? How do you stand to gain anything?”

“Mercury’s in love with you, isn’t he?”

Yang felt her face drop as fast as her heart and knew no amount of lying would make up for the way her expression had just spelled out the truth for him. Her silence was even more evidence, which is why Maurice started smirking in a way that was more than smug—it was malicious.

“I saw the way he protected you back in Patch… Nothing would make me happier than taking the one person that boy cares about away from him. After all, he did it to me,” Maurice said. “I could kill you right now and get similar results, but how much more satisfying would it be to break his pathetic heart into pieces when he finds out you married another man? I’ve seen an angry Mercury, and I’ve definitely seen a sad Mercury… but a jealous Mercury sounds far more entertaining.”

“He’s not some toy for you to play around with!” Yang shouted as she clambered to her feet. “And I’m not some helpless girl you can take advantage of.”

She readied her fists and assumed a fighting stance, the fire of her semblance flickering to life, but Maurice didn’t seem threatened in the slightest. On the contrary, he seemed highly amused.

“You’re just as entertaining as he is,” Maurice said with the same sinister smirk from before. “Which is why I know you’ll be just as easy to manipulate.”

He stood up and removed a small box from his tool belt. With a press of a button, the box grew in size until it was as tall and wide as he was. It also transformed from a box to a cage, and behind the cage’s bars were Weiss, Blake, and Nora.

“Oooh! We’re normal sized again!” Nora said, surprisingly happy for someone in her current predicament.

“Yang!” Blake yelled, rushing to Yang’s side of the cage and latching onto the bars.

“Blake! Weiss! Nora!” Yang cried. She tried to rush forward, but Maurice’s forearm caught her by her waist.

“Easy there, sweetheart. They’re my prisoners now,” Maurice said. “And unless you do exactly as I say… Well… You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Yang felt so many emotions surging through her, but the one that was outdoing all of them was that damn feeling of powerlessness. She slumped back to the ground, and with vacant eyes and trembling lips said, “You win.”

“I always do,” Maurice told her matter-of-factly, turning his magical cage back into its pocket-sized box and returning the contraption to his tool belt. “So why don’t you go on back up stairs, get gussied up, and have a wonderful wedding?”

Mercury had warned Yang about Maurice, but Maurice was the kind of awful you didn’t want to believe existed—the kind you had to experience for yourself to know just how evil a human being could be.

Yang had experienced it, and now she understood.

Mercury was right—Yang should’ve stayed home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **singing** She's... going to the chapel and she's... gonna get married! (^.~)y


	11. The Dance of the Fated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *IMPORTANT!!*
> 
> There is a song and dance routine that inspired this chapter! I played it in the background the entire time I wrote it, so if you'd like to play it the entire time you read it, go for it! Also, the dress in this video is the inspiration for Yang's "wedding" dress :D
> 
> Video:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aijrwfmkefs
> 
> Full Version of song:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcesnI2aF3E

The ceremony was held in a courtyard much bigger yet just as beautiful as the throne room. It was an outdoor ballroom with a forest of fairy lights dangling from the leafy trees and red and gold accents decorating everything from the columns holding up the terrace to the trash cans cleverly disguised as ancient pottery. An alter was built at the far end of the courtyard and would serve as the place Yang and prince Cornell took their final vows. It was all very aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but Yang was much too miserable to appreciate any of it.

At the weddings Yang had attended in the past, the bride’s appearance was kept secret until the wedding march played, announcing her entrance—and the groom most definitely wasn’t allowed to see her before that very moment. But at a Concrete royal wedding, traditions like that didn’t mean shit. Prince Cornell was at her side the moment she entered the courtyard—looking rather dapper in his red velvet suit with golden trim and stitching—and Yang was paraded around like a trophy, forced to make small talk with every member of the court she came into contact with.

There were times she felt like lying down and playing dead, but her eyes kept traveling toward the chocolate fountain on the buffet table where Maurice had chosen to spend most of his time. When he wasn’t finding new things to dunk in liquid chocolate, he was enjoying the short staring contests he and Yang partook in—all of which he wound up winning. If Yang tried anything funny, she knew he’d relish in crushing that small box attached to his tool belt, annihilating her friends.

~I have no choice~ Yang thought as she faked yet another smile and greeted yet another guest. ~This is happening. Blake, Weiss, and Nora are counting on me…~

After every single guest had been properly received by the bride and groom, it was time for the Dance of the Fated to begin. Yang took her position on the large wooden dance floor in the middle of the courtyard underneath strings upon strings of fairy lights as guests gathered around. King Mynn had a special seat on a platform near the alter, and was flanked by Katie and Argus the minute he sat down. Argus seemed cheery enough, but Katie looked just about ready to murder someone. Yang thought Maurice might move to join them as well, but he seemed much too captivated by the chocolate fountain to be bothered by the events of the ceremony.

Yang felt insulted. If he was going to force her to humiliate herself, then at least have the decency to watch her do it.

With a huffy exhale, Yang focused on her pose, pointing her toe and raising her arm as gracefully as she could. Her dance mistress was somewhere in the audience, and while she didn’t particularly care about making her proud, she did want to make her eat her words since she said Yang had as much rhythm as someone going into cardiac arrest. Yang wanted to prove that snooty woman dead wrong.

The melodic sounds of a live orchestra filled the air, silencing the crowd and quickening Yang’s heartbeat. The Dance of the Fated was starting. Utilizing the balance she’d gained from being a Huntress, Yang switched from one pose to the next, making her movements as fluid as possible. If she thought of it more as fight stances than dance poses, she wasn't half bad at it.

She managed to detect a few “oohs” and “ahhs” from the crowd, and even heard some polite applause when Cornell made his way to the dance floor to join her. Together, they performed the first part of the dance: the meeting. It started off slow and flirtatious, but soon became faster and more intense. They truly were dancing an entire relationship—which was sort of nice since they’d skipped all that stuff themselves.

Cornell turned out to be a surprisingly good dance partner. His steps were so sure and his lead was so strong that Yang didn’t have to worry about remembering any of the steps herself. She just followed his. His vivid green eyes were also hypnotizing enough to take Yang’s mind off the counts and instead focus on him. 

There came a part in the dance where Yang knelt down while Cornell ran his hand from her waist to her calf. She hadn’t meant to, but she momentarily winced at his touch. Her back was to his front in a reverse embrace, so she couldn’t tell if he sensed her recoil, but something told her he did. 

Regardless, the dance continued until the next phase where the servants brought masks and completely hid the faces of the bride and groom. Yang’s face was covered by a mask decorated in pearls and diamonds, while Cornell was given a mask as gold as the trim of his suit. They looked like the sun and moon. It was yet another element to this ceremony Yang would’ve found beautiful had it not been her hiding beneath the moon mask.

The sounds of the violins swelled before the music changed entirely and the next thing Yang knew, the dance floor was covered in other dancers—some coupled some not—all wearing red dresses or red suits much like theirs and hidden by white or gold masks.

Yang remained partnerless for exactly one heartbeat before a smooth dancer swept her up into his arms. At least, she thought it was a man since the dancer was wearing a tuxedo. But after putting her hands around the person’s frame, she soon realized her new partner was much too petite to be a male.

Through the holes in their masks, Yang caught the crimson eyes of her dance partner, staring into them and gasping when she realized she’d seen those eyes before.

“Emerald!” Yang said slightly louder than she’d intended.

“Shhh,” was all Emerald said, continuing to lead her as if nothing was wrong. “Don’t ask questions. Just act natural. Keep dancing like you normally would.”

“But I normally wouldn’t dance,” Yang countered, making Emerald laugh.

Suddenly, her steps were much lighter and Yang was almost starting to have fun. She wanted to ask Emerald so many things, but even if Emerald hadn’t told her to save her questions, she would’ve missed the chance. Emerald released her hold on Yang’s waist and gave a polite bow of farewell before taking a step backward and disappearing behind a twirling couple as they passed by.

Yang blinked several times in a vain attempt to fix her eyesight and find her friend, awkwardly meandering around the dance floor as she searched. Her dance mistress was probably burying her head in her hands because of how foolish Yang must’ve looked. She dodged a few dancers who wanted to partner her, weaving her way through their outstretched arms and passing by couples blissfully spinning around, much too caught up in their own routine to worry about hers.

When she dodged her seventh potential partner, she stepped back and bumped into yet another dancer. It was a man who was slightly taller than her with an athletic build that filled out his red velvet suit rather well.

“Cornell…” Yang mumbled.

He bowed deeply before rising and offering Yang his hand. It was hard to tell which direction the chocolate fountain was while being surrounded by so many people in the center of the dance floor, but just because Yang couldn’t see Maurice didn’t mean he couldn’t see her. If she declined Cornell now, Maurice might use such defiance as an excuse to kill her friends.

~For fuck's sake...~ she silently cursed. Her last hope of foiling the ceremony by failing to find Cornell and complete the dance was no more.

Yang took a deep breath, accepting her fate as she accepted Cornell’s hand.

Cornell was as smooth as ever and used their joined hands to spin her into him, causing Yang to press herself against his chest in a move far more intimate than any other they’d performed—a move much too scandalous for her dance mistress to approve of. She felt his fingers graze her neck and shoulder, tickling the bare skin of her ribs as they made their way to her hip and settling slightly lower than they had at the beginning of the dance.

Yang assumed this was the part of the relationship where things got a little more heated; something she felt like she’d do well at. Not one to be outdone, Yang pressed her hand to Cornell's chest and slid her leg back. She held the position for a moment before slowly rising. She then spun away and positioned herself back-to-back with him. He responded by latching onto her arms with his own and sending her flipping over his back and landing gracefully so they were face-to-face once more.

Something about Cornell had changed—his lead was still strong, but his moves had become much more aggressive. Judging from the crowd’s reactions, they were also much more impressive.

Yang felt like their dance had become a competition. Every move Cornell made, Yang wanted to match and make better. It was a war of the feet, and she wanted to win it. She was so caught up in outdoing him that she’d completely forgotten somewhere on that very same dance floor, Emerald was twirling around in a snazzy tuxedo for some godforsaken reason Yang wasn’t allowed to ask about.

Yang was caught off-guard when Cornell spun her into a dip so low he had to kneel to support her weight. She held his gaze as he brought her back up and realized his eyes were much darker than she first thought. Perhaps the mask was just casting a shadow over his irises.

Before she could get a better look, he spun her in repetitive circles so fast she nearly tripped over her own toes. Luckily, Cornell caught her before that happened and pulled her close in another intense pose. She thought he would’ve kissed her if their masks hadn’t been in the way. The crazy thing was, she wouldn’t have stopped him.

Everything that felt wrong about this earlier suddenly felt right. She felt happy. She felt compelled to try harder. And most of all, she felt an indescribable connection. Was that the power of this dance? Was it working some kind of spell on her? That thought sent a wave of panic through her, but the calming look in her partner’s eyes just as quickly quashed it. Eyes so dark and mysterious… almost like…

“Mercury’s,” Yang said without realizing it.

The music changed again. The other dancers left. The only two who remained on the floor were Yang and her partner.

This was the part of the dance where they unmasked each other and ascended the alter. For some reason, though, her partner turned to leave with the other dancers. Yang latched onto his hand and felt a surge of electricity pass between them. Her hand KNEW his hand. Just like her body knew his body. She pulled him back to her and reached for the ribbons securing his mask.

The golden disguise fell away and revealed a face she already guessed would be there, yet left her breathless all the same.

Mercury.

She wasn’t able to speak his name, but she hoped her eyes were saying everything she couldn't properly convey. Mercury took Yang’s mask off for her just as she did for him, and the second her mouth was accessible, he kissed her. That was better than anything her voice or eyes could've told him. Yang hooked her arm around his neck and kissed him back like she’d never get another chance to. It wasn’t until the murmurs of the crowd and King Mynn’s shouting drew Mercury’s attention away did Yang even consider stopping.

“WHERE IS MY SON?!” King Mynn roared.

Mercury grabbed Yang’s hand. “We have to get out of here,” he said, attempting to lead her away.

“Wait! I can’t,” Yang cried, keeping her feet planted. “Maurice has my friends. If we go, he’ll kill them for sure! I can’t just abandon them!”

“GUARDS! GET THEM!” King Mynn bellowed.

The dancers surrounding the sides of the dance floor were shoved out of the way by a slew of gun-toting guards. Once assembled, the guards readied their weaponry and took aim.

Mercury’s eyes frantically scanned the crowd in a way that told Yang he was trying to come up with a plan. When he finally turned in to face her and hold her at arms length, she knew what the plan was.

“Guess this is it,” he said with a shrug and a smirk. “Gotta admit, it was fun while it lasted.”

Yang couldn’t even muster a single tear. She felt so much contentment just knowing Mercury was there and in her arms that she was completely at peace.

“It was okay…”

“Okay?” Mercury repeated incredulously. All jokes aside, he locked eyes with her and smiled. “I love you, Yang.”

Yang smiled right back. “I love you, too,” she said. She closed her eyes and tilted her head until she felt Mercury’s warm lips on hers. Somewhere in the distance, she heard King Mynn shout, “FIRE!” and she braced herself for the bullets, but after a moment much too long, she realized she and Mercury were still kissing and still unscathed even after the guns went off.

Startled, she broke the kiss and looked around. The reason the bullets never hit them was because they were stopped in midair only a short distance away from the barrels of their guns. The bullets weren’t the only things frozen—every single person, be he a guard, king, or otherwise, was motionless and colorless, almost like they were stuck in a real life grayscale photograph. In fact, it wasn’t just the people. The entire courtyard had been drained of all its color—everything from the trees to the chocolate fountain was completely black and white. Everything except for Yang and Mercury.

“What happened?” Yang asked, looking down at her arms and dress to make sure they’d retained their color.

“We happened!” a young boy called from the second story terrace.

Yang looked up to see Mavros joining hands with a boy who looked just like him with the exception of their clothes. In bright contrast to Mavros’s all-black attire, his twin favored an all-yellow tracksuit.

“Mavros! And that must be Jin!” Yang exclaimed.

“That’s my boys,” Mercury said with a smirk.

Yang shot him a questioning look. “You know who they are?” she asked.

“C’mon, Mom! Now’s not the time for that! We can’t freeze time forever!” Mavros shouted.

“Hurry up and grab your friends and let’s get out of here!” Jin called.

“Already on it,” Emerald said, popping up out of nowhere holding the tiny box Maurice had trapped the rest of team NWBY in.

Yang’s mind was spinning. “I appreciate the help, but will someone please tell me how in the world you all got here and what the fuck is going on!” she screamed.

Mercury put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Shhh. Language. Think of the children,” he said, nodding towards the balcony Jin and Mavros were standing on. “I’ll tell you everything later. Right now, we need to go. Emerald?”

Emerald nodded, placing the box on the ground and activating its button. Seconds later the contraption grew in size and assumed its cage form. As happy as Yang was to see her friends in one piece, she was slightly dismayed when she realized they were frozen in time just like everyone else.

“We’ll have to free them after Jin and Mavros unfreeze time,” Mercury said, returning the cage to its box form and safely securing it beneath his velvet jacket.

Yang nodded. “Right.”

“C-can’t… hold… much… longer…” Mavros grunted.

“On our way, boys. You’re doing great!” Mercury called. “Well, ladies. Shall we?”

He didn’t need to ask twice. Yang had been ready to leave pretty much since she got there. She, Emerald, and Mercury darted through the crowd of frozen people—using their stiff shoulders and heads as stepping-stones and vaults when necessary—and burst through the doors leading back inside the palace. Yang let Mercury lead the way since he seemed to know where he was going.

“We’re gonna rendezvous with the kids on the third floor,” Mercury explained as they dashed down the corridor.

“I still can’t believe you’re here… ALL of you!” Yang said.

“Yeah, well… it’s a long story,” Emerald told her. “If we live through this, I’ll be more than happy to regale you with it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yaaaaaay!!! Mercury is back!!! ( º¬º)/\\(º¬º )
> 
> But Weiss, Nora, and Blake are still frozen! And Maurice is still at large! And Jin and Mavros might be in trouble, too! And King Mynn is probably pissed. And Prince Cornell is still single... So don't miss out on the next coming chapters!


	12. The Lucky One

The air around Yang was cold and damp while the sound of something dripping in the distance slowly drew her out of her slumber. She scrunched her eyes as well as her nose when she took in the rotten aroma of the dark chamber she’d awoken to. It was a smell reminiscent to her father’s dirty socks and Zwei’s fur after a long day of playing in the mud.

Yang was confused at first—having difficulty figuring out where she was or how she got there—but when she realized her hands were bound around a large wooden post behind her back, she knew wherever she was wasn’t where she wanted to be.

She struggled against her restraints, her chains rattling against the smooth wood of the post sprouting up from the filthy stone ground of the chamber. Her effort did nothing to loosen her bindings, but it did garner the attention of someone hidden in the shadows.

“Who’s there?”

“Emerald?! Is that you?” Yang called out, relieved to recognize the voice of her friend.

“Oh, gods. It’s just you, Yang.” Emerald sounded just as relieved.

“What happened? How did we end up here?” Yang asked. The room was dark and her bindings forced her to look one way, but she could still make out the slender silhouette of the expert thief beside her tied to a similar structure.

“My mind is a bit hazy, too,” Emerald admitted, “but I vaguely remember some type of purple gas emitting from the walls as we were running. I think it was sleep screen. Someone must’ve triggered a boobytrap—one made by Merc’s uncle, no doubt.”

“Ha. You said trap.”

Emerald paused long enough for Yang to envision the unamused look that must’ve been sinking into her features.

“Glad to see our dire situation hasn’t affected your sense of humor,” Emerald deadpanned.

Honestly, Yang’s puns were a knee-jerk reaction, and right now she was acting completely on instinct. That was part of being in survival mode, though there wasn’t much else she could do other than crack a joke or two. She was still wearing her skimpy red dress from the ceremony and, unless she counted the sharp heels of her stilettos, she was still void of any weaponry.

“Now that we have a chance to talk, how did you get here?” Yang asked.

Emerald took a deep breath. “I left for Mistral the same night I showed you the letter that, turns out, wasn’t written by Mercury.”

Yang furrowed her brow. “It wasn’t?”

“Nope. You probably won’t believe me when I tell you, but some kids came from the future and—“

“Mavros and Jin. The time-traveling twins,” Yang interrupted.

“Okay. So maybe you WILL believe me when I tell you,” Emerald amended. “They wrote the letter knowing I would show it to you and knowing we’d both head to Mistral the first chance we got.”

~So that’s why Mavros popped up out of nowhere with a job that just so happened to include free airfare to the east~ Yang thought to herself. “You knew about this from the beginning?” Yang asked. She almost felt betrayed.

“No! I didn’t! I was duped into thinking it was a real letter, too. Although, I should’ve known better. Mercury’s never once written to me, and even if he did, his grammar and punctuation wouldn’t have been so clean.”

“Then... was this all a trap? Would my kids really want to...”. She trailed off. Again, Yang felt betrayed, but this time the innocent faces of her supposed sons flashed through her mind.

“Why would your future children come back to the past to kill you? That’d kill them, too,” Emerald pointed out. “Think clearly, Yang. They definitely came back to save you. I’m sure there was only so much they could anticipate and plan for, though. Jin told us that every time we make a choice we change the future. If even the simplest of choices changes, so does the future.”

The time-travel talk was starting to make Yang’s head spin, and it had already been a very trying day. The last thing she needed was for her mind to warp into a merry-go-round.

“So, to sum things up, you and Mercury are here because...?”

“Because of Jin,” Emerald said plain and simple. “Jin approached me the same way Mavros approached you, I’m guessing. We then found Mercury because Jin knew exactly where he would be because the Mercury from the future told him—”

“Stop. Stop. My head is hurting.”

Emerald let out a huffy sigh. “Jin found me. We found Merc. The three of us then infiltrated some rich aristocrat’s house and stole his invitation to your wedding—Jin predicted it would happen. We snuck in as party guests and then used the dance as a distraction to save you and your teammates. Well... almost.”

“It was a valiant effort,” Yang said as she released her neck and let the back of her head clunk against the wooden post behind her. “You really surprised me, actually. I never would’ve suspected you and Mercury to be two of the dancers.”

Yang thought back to how effortlessly she had moved with him. Even when she thought he was another man, Yang couldn’t help but feel a bizarre magnetic attraction to Mercury.

“You should’ve seen the look in your eyes,” Emerald teased. “You went from being a lifeless doll to a motivated machine.”

“Are machines sexy enough to wear a dress like this?” Yang asked, gesturing to her garment.

“Atlas Tech is getting there...” Emerald said with a laugh.

Yang was so caught up in their pleasant conversation that she momentarily forgot they were prisoners in a corrupt King’s castle. The moment ended when a loud click sounded from underneath them and the floor started to rise, gears whirring in a cacophony of metallic sounds. For a hectic second, Yang thought they might be crushed into the ceiling, but said ceiling opened up at the same time so that their platforms could lift into the room above them; the throne room.

“Not this place again...” Yang groaned as her platform came to a stop and the familiar fire sconces and ornate thrones came into view.

Prince Cornell slouched atop his throne in a similar, disinterested manner as he had that very morning, but his vivid green eyes were bright with fury, and all of it was solely focused on Yang. Cornell’s father had a heated look about him as well, but he managed to maintain the dignity of a monarch and came off more condescending than angered.

Katie and Argus were once again flanking the royals, but this time the number of palace guards lining the steps of the dais and circling them doubled. Yang thought the excessive amount of protection was a bit overkill for just Emerald and herself—especially since they were both chained to the wooden posts of their platforms—but then she noticed the other prisoners that had risen up from other rooms to join them.

Curving the line of prisoners to Yang’s right was Emerald, Blake, Weiss, and Nora—all back to their normal size, all seemingly unharmed, yet also all confined to wooden posts much like her own.

To her left were Mavros, Jin, and Mercury. Her gaze stopped when it fell upon her boyfriend. He kept his head down at first, staring at the space between his bent knees before he looked up and noticed Yang tied to the post beside his. His gunmetal gray eyes locked with her light lilacs and Yang wanted nothing more than to break her chains and go punch him in the gut. Once for leaving her, twice for deceiving her, and then kiss him so hard he’d be sure to never do either offense again.

Their moment was interrupted when Argus descended the dais and stepped between them, blocking Mercury from Yang’s view.

Argus obviously had something to say, but so did Yang and her lips moved faster.

“How did you manage to convince my uncle that a scumbag like you was a client worth keeping?” she asked. It was a question that had been bugging her since the moment Argus revealed his true colors—not to mention his true name.

“I’m a fairly decent people person,” Argus cooed. He continued walking towards her, his copper eyes staring Yang down like a predator about to sink his teeth into his prey while his lips curled into an annoyingly arrogant smile.

“Did you even need that cargo I helped you protect?” Yang pressed.

“Actually, yes. The materials you aided in transporting were for Maurice’s inventions—in fact the sleeping gas apparatus you all triggered was completed thanks to that very shipment. Well done.”

Yang rolled her eyes and averted her gaze.

“I have to admit I was a little jealous when the prince claimed you as his bride-to-be,” Argus continued with his trademark haughtiness. “I was kind of hoping you’d be down for round two.” He turned enough to give Mercury a smug sidelong glance and gauge his reaction. If Mercury cared, he didn’t show it, though Yang suspected he was just using a poker face to hide his irritation since she knew full well how Merc truly felt about Argus, the jackass-of-all-trades.

Yang glowered at the man looking down on her. “If I wanted sex as bad as yours, I would just ride a slip-n-slide,” she retorted.

~Note to self: do not insult a previous partner’s sexual prowess when in perfect kicking position~ Yang thought after the tip of Argus’s boot slammed into her side.

“STOP!” she heard Mercury yell, though she’d taken hits way worse in the past—some dealt by Mercury himself—so she wasn’t sure why he sounded so alarmed. Whatever the reason, his cry was enough to divert her assailant’s attention.

“Aw, what’s wrong?” Argus teased as he leisurely approached Mercury. “I thought you were a heartless killer. It would make this so much more fun if you were. Don’t tell me you’ve actually developed FEELINGS, of all things.”

Mercury didn’t even pay him the time of day. He was too busy looking from Yang’s stomach to her face, trying to read her expression. Just beyond him, Mavros and Jin were looking at her with equal concern. Then it clicked: Mercury knew Yang was pregnant. The twins must’ve told him. She thought it funny how everyone else seemed to be more aware of her condition than she was.

After assessing how her side was responding to the blow, Yang offered Mercury, Mavros, and Jin a soft smile just big enough to let them know they didn’t have to worry. Plus, she figured the twins would be disappearing or something if Argus really had done the unthinkable.

Serving to interrupt yet another fleeting moment, Argus grabbed hold of Mercury’s chin and forced him to look up. “Hey! I’m talking to you!” Argus shouted in his face.

“That’s enough,” King Mynn ordered from his throne.

“But you said I could torment them,” Argus whined like a spoiled child. Even the twins seemed more mature.

“It’s dinner time for my pets. We need not delay any longer,” King Mynn declared.

Argus nodded before releasing Mercury’s jaw and ascending the dais to once again stand at his lord’s side. As he went, Mercury fixed Yang with an incredulous look and mouthed the words: “I can’t believe you had sex with him.”

“Dinner time for his PETS?’” Nora repeated, looking with wide eyes to her friends.

“That’s correct,” Katie informed her, brushing her long black braid off her shoulder and shifting her weight from one hip to the other. She looked sexy yet acted bitchy. Yang hated to admit it, but she kind of liked her style. “King Mynn has several pet Grimm that roam the magnificent labyrinth Maurice crafted just for his enjoyment. You will be let loose into the labyrinth and fight to stay alive. We typically select choice young men and women for this event, but you lot shall suffice for tonight’s entertainment.”

“That’s the reason?!” Blake shouted out. “THAT’S what you kidnap innocent people for? So you can feed them to your PET GRIMM?!? Why go through all the trouble of finding ones who are special, then?!”

“The special ones put up a decent fight,” Katie said flatly. “It gets boring to watch after a while, but ones who actually know what they’re doing keep it interesting. Plus, I hear the pretty ones taste better. Though, that’s just speculation...”

Yang shook her head and looked to Mercury. “I can’t believe YOU had sex with HER!” she mouthed. Mercury just shrugged, raised his eyebrows, and twisted his mouth into a semi-apologetic smirk.

“Unfortunately... we only have seven pods that lead into the labyrinth, meaning only seven people can enter at a time, meaning one of you is about to be very lucky,” Katie continued. “King Mynn has graciously granted you the opportunity to choose who among the eight of you shall be spared. So choose.”

The throne room fell deafeningly silent as the weight of Katie’s words sunk in. Seven of them were about to be Grimm chow. One of them would be saved. What fate befell the “saved” one, Yang wasn’t sure. She couldn’t imagine them just allowing one of their prisoners to walk free. If anything, they’d only be spared until the next seven were selected to enter the labyrinth. Either way, that person would be safe for now, and now was all they had.

“I vote for the twins, Mavros and Jin!” Yang said loud enough for the entire throne room to hear.

“You must’ve misheard me. I said you can spare ONE person. Not two,” Katie sneered.

“But they’re children!” Weiss argued.

“Boys that age are the perfect mix of baby fat and muscle. The Grimm’s favorite treat,” Katie countered.

Yang looked to the steadfast faces of the young blond boys. They didn’t appear to be the least bit fearful, but how could she choose between them?

In rational terms, she’d known Mavros longer, but she also knew Mavros could fight. Not to mention she was still under contract to save Jin at all costs. Even if it had all been a sham to reunite her with Mercury, that’s what she’d been hired to do.

Before Yang could voice her decision, Mercury spoke first.

“I vote to spare Yang,” he said with enough resolution to end the debate.

The new nomination managed to trigger a response in Katie that made her eyebrow twitch, her jaw tighten, and her eyes narrow. “And WHY would you choose to spare HER?”

There was so much venom in her words Yang felt queasy just from hearing them. She silently wondered what irked Katie more: the fact that Yang might be spared for the second time that day or the fact that Mercury was the one to suggest sparing her.

“Why? Because you gave us the option to save someone. Duh,” Mercury pointed out, making Katie’s expression darken even further.

As amusing as Yang found Mercury taunting his evil ex-girlfriend to be, she would not sit back and allow herself to be saved over a child.

“I vote to spare—“

“I second his nomination!” Jin loudly proclaimed with a smirk that he’d without question inherited from his father.

“B-but...” 

“I third it,” Mavros agreed.

“Make it four!” Blake chimed in.

“Five!” came Weiss’s voice.

“Six!” Nora said.

“And that’s unanimous,” Emerald concluded.

“Hold on. Why me?” Yang asked in a harsh whisper directed at Emerald.

“It’s like Merc said: because they gave us a choice to save someone,” Emerald coolly replied. “And because by saving you, we’re actually saving THREE people,” she added in a whisper only Yang could hear.

Yang could feel herself blushing. How was it that everyone could remember she was pregnant except her? At least now she felt a little more at peace with the decision.

“As you wish,” King Mynn said, signaling the guards to approach the prisoners. After unchaining her from her post, Yang was led up to the dais and forced to stand next to Katie. Everyone else was unchained and led out of the throne room. Yang felt a feeling much too painful to be morning sickness creep into her stomach as she watched them go.

Mavros and Jin gave her reassuring smiles over their shoulders as they went. Mercury looked over his shoulder, too. Not to smile, though. Heck, he wasn’t even looking at Yang. His intense eyes shifted from Argus to Cornell and they were saying: you touch her, you die.

Yang took a deep, calming breath. If they were being forced to fight Grimm, then at least she knew they stood a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Facts Time:
> 
> I’m basing this part of the fic off of the Greek myth: the Labyrith! King Mynn Concrete is based on King Minos of Crete! Again, Maurice is based on Daedalus, and if you know the legend, I bet you can guess what big bad Grimm is awaiting them in the labyrinth ;)
> 
> The reason 7 is the magic number is because every year King Minos would find 7 men and 7 women to put in the labyrinth and feed to his “son.”
> 
> Also! The twins are based on fictional characters, too. The name of the fairytale changes, but it’s about two brothers who can tell if the other is alive or not based on two golden flowers that grow outside their home. If the flower is dead, that means so is the brother it’s tied to. Neat, huh? :D


	13. The Labyrinth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shoutout to Kayla for motivating me to finish this chapter! (b^_^)b

Saying the labyrinth was a source of entertainment for the people of Concrete castle was an understatement. If anything, Katie had downplayed what a big deal this event was for them. 

Eight gigantic laser screens appeared as soon as Yang’s comrades were escorted out of the throne room, seven of which aligned themselves horizontally at perfect eyelevel with the king. The eighth screen was five times as big as the others and was centered above them.

Yang’s eyes flashed from the faded blue lights of the laser screens to the side doors of the throne room when servants with trays of colorful sweet treats and drinks came bursting out from them. The servants were accompanied by a loud and boisterous bookie with an electronic notebook in hand yelling for viewers to place their bets. Several guards holstered their guns and sheathed their blades before approaching the bookie with Lien in hand and sly smirks across their faces.

Yang scoffed in disgust. They were treating this like a game. The only reason they cared if her friends lived or died would be if they bet on their survival. The entire concept made Yang want to clobber every last guard, monarch, and bookie in that room until it was uncertain if they would live or die so they could bet on their own slim chance of survival instead.

“Whom are you betting on?” Argus asked in a voice so oily the castle cooks could’ve used it to deep-fry the donut holes they were passing out on one of the trays. Yang hadn’t even noticed him slide behind her. She turned to fix him with a glare before answering.

“All of them.”

Argus laughed. “Ah. Such optimism. You must not be much of a gambling woman.”

“I don’t have to be. I make my own luck,” Yang answered in a stern voice. Her response managed to wipe the grin off Argus’s face, but only for a moment.

“If only you weren’t such a selfish bitch. Maybe you could share some of that luck you make with your friends,” Argus said, his words dripping with disdain. He leaned in closer so that his lips nearly brushed the cuff of Yang’s ear. “But maybe you ARE in luck, since I find selfish bitches to be undeniably attractive…”

“Argus!” Prince Cornell called, snapping the copper-eyed underling to attention.

“Sir!” Argus said, his back as straight as a line and his eyes as wide as the gap between his brain and his spinal cord.

“Go retrieve a plush pillow for Yang to sit on. I’d like her to watch the execution of the prisoners at my side.”

Following a deep bow, Argus ran off to fulfill his new task. Meanwhile, Katie’s iron grip took hold of Yang’s human arm and dragged her over to Cornell’s throne.

“Gee… forcing me to watch your twisted attempt to murder my friends… You sure know how to charm a girl,” Yang said flatly.

“And you sure know how to aggravate very important people,” Cornell growled. “So I suggest you keep your pretty mouth closed before I order someone to permanently remove it.”

Whether Cornell was bluffing or not, Yang didn’t particularly feel like wasting anymore energy on him, even if that energy came in the form of punny comebacks and sassy remarks. She jumped at the chance to cease speaking to him, and silently looked on as the guards placed their bets and the servants served their snacks.

By the time Argus arrived with her sitting pillow, the smaller screens came to life flashing images of seven familiar faces. The much larger eighth screen took turns showcasing what was on each of the other seven. Yang held her breath as her eyes traveled from screen to screen. For the most part, her friends seemed confident and assured—not the slightest bit frightened.

Yang breathed out a sigh of relief. ~They have faith in themselves, so I need to have faith in them, too~ she reminded herself.

Despite this decision, both her mechanical and human fingers clutched tightly at the edges of the russet suede pillow serving as her seat. She wanted to be on one of those screens—she wanted to be with them in the labyrinth, fighting alongside them and ensuring their survival. She felt absolutely helpless atop her royal cushion, still garbed in the fine red dress of her wedding ceremony. Princess life would never be for Yang. She was a Huntress through and through, and now more than ever she wanted to prove it.

“What happens if they win?” she asked absentmindedly, yet loud enough for Cornell to hear. She kept her eyes focused on the large screen as it switched from a shot of Weiss to a shot of Emerald, but she could hear the smile in Cornell’s voice from behind her.

“They never win.” 

“Then why place bets?”

“They aren’t betting on who survives. They’re betting on who dies last. No one. Ever. Wins.”

“But what if they do?” she pressed, the screen changing from Emerald to Mercury.

Cornell paused, most likely long enough to lose the smile since his next sentence sounded much less amused. “Well, I guess we’ll find out together,” he said.

Yang watched the laser screens intently as her friends were escorted down dark corridors and into mechanical pods. It was the sound of Argus’s amplified voice that drew her attention back to the throne room.

“Ladies and gentlemen of Concrete court, welcome to another exciting installment of the Labyrinth, brought to you by the gracious and benevolent King Mynn!”

“How is any of this gracious or benevolent?” Yang muttered to herself. The sound of everyone else’s cheers drowned her out.

“I’m your handsome host with the most, Argus Copperfield! And I’m joined once again by the lovely and lethal enchantress, Katie Gray. Tonight, we’ll be tuning in as seven idiotic intruders duke it out with some of your favorite creatures of Grimm. So let’s get ready to RUMMMMMBLLLLLE!!!” Argus put his glittery golden microphone to his scroll’s speaker and an inappropriately hype song echoed throughout the throne room.

~Dear god. Who gave that man a mic?~ Yang thought as she shook her head at the pair of commentators standing at the edge of the dais. Katie had an equally glittery golden microphone, though she looked ready to roll hers down the dais steps and just give up on life. If this was what she looked like while about to be highly entertained, Yang couldn’t imagine what Katie must’ve looked like when she was bored out of her mind.

“It seems Blake Belladonna is a crowd favorite to outlast the others,” Katie said in a dry, monotone voice.

“It’s because she’s dark and mysterious!” Argus explained. “Seems everyone is in agreement the kids will go down first. Although, they didn’t see young Mavros in the tournament we held at Dizzy World. That boy has some fight in him, to be sure.”

“Since we’re equipping them with their preferred weapons, I think Mavros will be a contender,” Katie replied, dry as ever. Why was she even commentating? She sounded like she hated every second of it.

“Ooh! It looks like they’ve reached their starting positions,” Argus announced. Yang felt her whole body tense in anticipation for something big to happen, but all the monitors showed her friends sitting patiently in their separate pods.

“King Mynn, on your count,” Argus said, glancing back at his liege.

“Seven. Six. Five. Four,” King Mynn said. As he counted, the main screen shifted from person to person. “Three. Two. One.”

Argus used a buzzer sound effect on his scroll the same moment the doors of the transport pods opened. More cheers erupted from the spectators of the throne room as Yang’s friends entered the labyrinth.

The dark metal walls of the giant maze were tall and daunting, but a cloudy sky as red as blood served as an adequate source of light overhead. Mercury, Weiss, and Blake all had the same idea at first: to climb over the top of the walls. Blake used her Gambol Shroud, Weiss used her glyphs, and Mercury kicked from wall to wall until all three managed to collide with the electronic ceiling that zapped them back down to the ground. The parts of the projected sky they came into contact with phased in and out momentarily until resuming their seamless projections.

“Tough luck, kids,” Argus said as Blake, Weiss, and Mercury picked themselves up off the metal floor of the maze. “Maurice did an excellent job of making the sky look as real as possible, but you are all, in fact, in an enclosed space. You have no choice but to navigate the labyrinth. No cheating allowed.”

From the face Mercury was making, Yang guessed they could hear the commentators just as loud and clear as she could. With an angry look in his eyes, Mercury took off at a run down his secluded corridor. Weiss and Blake did the same.

“I wonder who will bump into the first Grimm?” Katie asked, though the way she asked made it seem like she could care less. Regardless of how many fucks Katie may or may not have given, she didn’t have to wonder for long. Jin was the first to encounter a creature of Grimm.

A Griffon the size of a van stood menacingly in Jin’s path, its four red eyes staring him down like a White Fang extremist staring down a human. The Griffon sank back with its tail in the air, lowering its birdlike head to the ground—a position that told Yang it was ready to pounce. Fortunately, it told Jin the exact same thing, for he jumped up into the air just in time to dodge the attack.

While still airborne, Jin unveiled his weapon: a small yellow rod he kept secured to his back. Yang desperately hoped it changed into something awesome and was unsure whether to be relieved or confused when the rod extended into a child’s pogo stick. Yang decided on the former when Jin used said pogo stick to bounce off the Griffon’s head, entering into a textbook back flip which he stuck perfectly in front of the slightly stupefied Grimm. He then used his pogo stick like a baseball bat and whacked the Griffon upside its beak as if he was hitting a game-winning grand slam.

The Griffon staggered and crashed into the metal wall, but it wasn’t quite beaten. That’s when Jin revealed his pogo stick’s second weapon, a gilded katana. Jin unsheathed his sheen sword like an expert Hunter, his eyes as dangerous as the edge of his blade. The young boy then thrust his weapon’s new form into the heart of the Griffon before it had time to react, and the creature let out a shriek of defeat before dissolving into a thick black cloud of smoke.

“W-well… In a surprising turn of events… the Griffon Grimm has fallen… at the hands of a child,” Argus said, his voice wavering as his mind undoubtedly struggled to comprehend what he’d just witnessed.

Yang looked to the monitor featuring Mercury and smiled the same time he did. She knew they were both thinking the same thing: our kids kick so much ass.

Emerald was next to cross paths with a Grimm, but her fight was over even faster than Jin’s. Following Emerald’s victory, Weiss made quick work of an Ursa and Nora completely trashed a Death Stalker. Some of the court actually cheered every time a Grimm got taken down, most likely because of the gambling. But King Mynn and Prince Cornell were strangely quiet apart from the smacking sounds they made when devouring fruit tarts and snicker doodles.

Yang wondered if the monarchs found this to be as entertaining as they typically did since none of the prisoners were kicking the bucket—something that must’ve been new to them. When the action died down long enough for Yang to safely tear her eyes away from the monitors without missing anything important, she saw King Mynn pleasantly watching the live footage, smiling like he knew something she didn’t. Cornell seemed equally pleased. Just what were they so smug about?

A harmonized cry from the audience snapped Yang’s attention back to the main screen. Mercury was squaring off with his first Grimm, and it was a big one—one Yang had never seen before. Not only was it three times the size of Mercury, it had the fearsome head of a bull and the body of the buffest man in all of Remnant. It was also the first Grimm Yang had ever seen to be equipped with its own weapon. It carried a black battleax as big as his massive head with edges as sharp as the tips of its horns, and the bones jutting out along its arms and back looked just as threatening as the gleam in its garnet eyes.

The word ‘intimidating’ didn’t seem to do this creature justice.

“And here we go,” Cornell said, shifting in his seat so that he was closer to the edge of it, resting his elbows on his knees. Yang knew Mercury, of all people, could take care of himself, but the sinister smile cutting into Cornell’s cheeks made Yang clutch her pillow with her metal hand and her chest with her human one. Her heart throbbed with a small pang of pain as Mercury’s personalized footage occupied the main screen. The seasoned fighter looked nothing but poised as he took his stance, eyes locked on the gigantic monster before him.

“It seems Mr. Black has about as much luck as a black cat breaking a mirror underneath a ladder after opening an umbrella indoors,” Argus said, his voice the tiniest bit sympathetic. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you bet on Mercury this evening, I’m sorry to say you won’t be winning, for the poor fool has stumbled upon King Mynn’s prized pet and the labyrinth’s most formidable Grimm: the Minotaur.”

Mercury’s eyes narrowed and he charged the beast. Yang guessed the sudden attack was spurred by his desire to shut Argus up. If it was, it worked, for the entire throne room fell silent as Mercury slid underneath the mammoth creature’s legs, dodging an ax attack and landing a powerful roundhouse kick in the small of the Grimm’s lower back. The Minotaur stumbled forward, but regained its center quickly and let out a ferocious roar.

“The angrier it gets, the stronger it hits,” Argus said with a sly smile, casting a fleeting glance in Yang’s direction. If that was the case, Yang felt a smidge of her anxiety fade away. Mercury had sparred with Yang for years. While most of their fights were usually playful (or foreplayful) there were occasions when Mercury had pissed her off enough to make her activate her semblance and really pummel his ass. If anyone could handle an opponent that grew in strength and anger with each passing hit, it was Mercury.

The Minotaur made the next move. Puffing black smoke from its oversized nostrils, it charged Mercury, brining its ax back in preparation for a full-scale swing. Mercury hopped over the ax, landing on top of the flat side of the weapon and riding it until the momentum of the swing got Mercury right next to the Minotaur’s head. Once there, Mercury unleashed a flurry of kicks, knocking the beast’s chin up, then down, then side-to-side. Yang lost count, but it was something like a fourteen-hit-combo by the time Mercury finally spring-boarded off the Minotaur’s snout and landed gracefully a few feet away.

The Minotaur fell back and landed with a crash that made the entire labyrinth shake. Yang could tell the others felt the vibration from the way they reacted, pausing and searching for the source of the tremor.

“I forget, Argus,” Yang said. The arrogant commentator flashed his copper eyes in her direction. “Who exactly is the unlucky one?” she asked with a coy smile.

Argus pursed his lips, but his silence gave Katie a chance to commentate. “It seems Mercury isn’t as much of a pushover as he once was,” she said.

The remark was simple, but it made Yang remember the history Katie and Mercury shared—a part of his life that Yang would only ever know by the stories he elected to tell her. Many words came to mind when she thought of Mercury, but ‘pushover’ wasn’t one of them. Katie cast a look back at Yang that made it seem like she knew exactly what she was thinking and how much she relished in Yang not knowing the whole of Mercury’s past. Ex-girlfriend and current girlfriend drama at its finest.

Suddenly, the main screen switched to Blake’s personalized footage. She’d met up with Mavros and together they were tag-teaming another Griffon. Mavros used his yo-yo to leash the beast while Blake went in for the kill. The fight was short, sweet, and lasted the same amount of time it took the Minotaur to rise to its feet. The main screen swiftly shifted back to Mercury’s live feed and round two of their fight commenced.

Mercury continued to dominate, dealing a staggering number of successful blows and proving the Minotaur’s brute strength to be no match for the former assassin’s amazing speed. Despite the amount of damage it took, the Minotaur didn’t appear to be losing any stamina. Every time the colossal creature was brought to its knees, it got back up just as quickly as it fell and charged just as fervently as it had the first time it attacked.

Mercury wasn’t as resilient. The fatigued fighter’s mouth hung open, gasping for the air his overworked body wasn’t getting enough of as he took on a more defensive strategy. He chose to focus his energy on quick flips and dodges rather than strikes that did little to no damage. Though this new strategy may have allowed Mercury a chance to catch his breath, it did nothing to weaken the Minotaur. Wearing the creature out was simply not a possibility. Mercury would either have to go back to a more offensive approach in hopes of discovering some sort of weakness or abandon the fight altogether and attempt an escape.

“Mercury isn’t looking so good. I’d sure hate it if someone who cared about him was watching this…” Argus said. Yang didn’t even have to look to know he was glancing pointedly at her. What an ass.

Yang knew Mercury wasn’t opposed to running when the occasion called for it, but she also knew he didn’t like to appear weak. With so many eyes focused on every move Mercury made and with two of those eyes being hers, Yang had a hunch her stubborn showoff of a boyfriend was going to tough out his fight until he absolutely had no other option but to run. Her hunch proved true when Mercury stopped flipping away in favor of kicking away again.

“Oh, ho! And he’s back at it again with the kickity kicks! Let’s see if this same ineffective tactic works out any better than it has the past ten minutes!” Argus remarked. Yang seriously hoped Mercury was getting half as riled up by Argus as she was since the added frustration might help him hit harder.

During a string of consecutive butterfly kicks to its shins, the Minotaur latched on to one of Mercury’s legs and smashed him into the metal ground of the labyrinth. Yang inhaled sharply, almost like she could feel his pain.

“Mercury…”

That was Yang’s line, but she wasn’t the one to say it. Yang tore her eyes away from the screen to look at Katie who was suddenly unnerved by the spectacle her monarchs took so much delight in. Her midnight blue eyes went wide with dread and—though Yang didn’t think it possible—her pale pretty face grew even paler.

Mercury hadn’t told Yang much about his relationship with Katie, but she knew he was her first love and she also knew no girl ever forgot her first. She also knew she wanted to repeatedly punch Katie for suddenly showing signs of concern over Mercury. She was one of the reasons he was in that godforsaken labyrinth in the first place, and Yang would be damned if that bipolar bitch was going to steal anymore of her lines.

Without thinking, Yang stood up from her pillow, marched over to Katie, and yanked the golden microphone from her hand.

“Mercury, get up!” she yelled, causing a reverb so bad it stung. Everyone in the throne room groaned and covered their ears as the pitch of the reverb grew higher. Yang winced from the sound, but didn’t let it stop her. “You usually fight with your brain just as much as you do with your feet, so what’s the deal? You can beat this thing; you just need to use your other weapon. You can do this. You HAVE to do this… because… there’s something I’m pretty sure you already know, but I still have to tell you in person!”

Mercury’s eyes snapped open and he rolled out of the way just in time to avoid being sliced in half by the Minotaur’s battleax.

“Good! Now think smart, you insufferable smartass!” Yang told him just before Katie slapped her across the face and snatched her microphone back.

“You insolent wench,” Katie spat, glaring daggers at Yang.

“What? Did you WANT him to die?!” Yang fired back, pressing her cool metal fingers to the tender side of her face.

“I want YOU to die!” Katie screamed, latching on to a handful of Yang’s hair.

Oh. No. She. Didn’t.

Yang’s eyes flared scarlet as her fist collided with Katie’s face, sending the petite woman toppling down the dais steps like a regular ragdoll. Yang made a move to jump from the dais and continue her assault, but a halting hand latched onto her elbow and stopped her where she stood. Slightly startled and still enraged, Yang jerked her head around to see a brawny man covered from head to toe in gears and gadgets. In fact, Yang couldn’t understand how someone with so many doodads, gizmos, and muscles could possess the stealth of a ninja. He barely jingled at all.

“I think that’s enough of that,” Maurice said, his fingers tightening around her arm. “Remember, you were spared from fighting tonight, so don’t push your luck, little lady.”

Yang could feel the fire of her semblance urging her to throw this guy down the stairs to join Katie, but she could also feel the morning sickness in her stomach reminding her she had more lives than her own at stake if she made any stupid decisions. With a heavy sigh, Yang’s eyes blinked back to light lilac and she relaxed her tense muscles.

“That’s a good girl,” Maurice said with a smirk. He gestured for Yang to retake her seat at the foot of Cornell’s throne, and she did.

Yang had been so caught up in her own fight that she’d completely lost track of the ones happening in the labyrinth. Her eyes shot to the main screen to see Mercury and the Minotaur still going at it, but what surprised Yang was that Jin and Weiss had somehow joined the fray.

“Your friends are highly entertaining,” Cornell whispered in her ear as if giving his seal of approval. “Then again, so are you.”

“I’m not marrying you, so you can stop the flattery whenever you like,” Yang deadpanned.

Cornell scoffed. “Saving yourself for that boorish thug?” he asked.

Yang knew he meant Mercury, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “You shouldn’t talk about your father like that.”

Had Cornell not been wearing a signet ring, the backhanded smack he delivered across her face might not have hurt as much. Yang held her cheek, finding it funny how Katie had slapped one side of her face and Cornell had struck the other. At least both of her cheeks would be puffy now so she’d look more like a chipmunk than a lopsided punching bag.

“While I do admire your spirit, too much of anything is never good,” Cornell told her.

Yang wanted to point out how she’d spent too much time with his royal highness, but Argus’s amplified babbling drew her attention back to the labyrinth battles yet again.

“What do you get when you cross a moron with an ice queen and a minor? We’ll find out when the Minotaur mangles their bloody bodies together,” Argus said.

Disregarding the horrible joke, Weiss tossed Mercury a cartridge of dust crystals, which he quickly snapped in his boots. His next set of bullets came out as fiery projectiles aimed straight at the Minotaur’s eyes. The attack managed to blind the beast, causing it to roar in agony and fall to its knees. Weiss used this opportunity to surround the creature with her bright white glyphs. She then propelled herself from glyph to glyph in a zigzagging blitz attack, slashing the Minotaur with every pass she made. Jin joined in, too, favoring his katana over his pogo stick and striking the Minotaur’s arms until the creature collapsed from the damage.

Yang wondered why their joint attacks were suddenly more effective, then she realized Jin was using dust crystals as well. The Minotaur must’ve been weak against magic.

Mercury had obviously come to the same conclusion—probably much sooner than Yang—and was already gearing up for a new kind of offense. He ran up a metal wall of the labyrinth, using his momentum to kick off into a backflip that landed him directly on top of the Minotaur’s head between its horns. The second his feet made contact, his boots emitted a rocket boost that shot Mercury up and sent bolts of lighting striking down. The Minotaur convulsed in sharp, jerky movements as the volts of electricity passed through it.

As Mercury continued his ascent into the air, his legs did rapid bicycle kicks, releasing a different type of element every time his feet made a downward motion. Balls of fire, spikes of ice, gusts of wind, and chunks of rock rained down on the Minotaur in a dust-powered shower that made the entire throne room gasp in awe and wonder. Yang rarely saw Mercury use any magic other than his standard wind pellets, but he definitely didn’t seem like a novice when it came to other varieties of dust. Watching him be such a badass was making her fall even more in love with him. The best part was Mercury had single-footedly managed to shut Argus up. Yang wished she could take a picture of the astonished face Argus was making as he stared at the screen with a jaw as slack as his morals.

Alas, after Mercury’s devastating attack, the Minotaur was still standing. But the arrival of Emerald and Nora kept their spark of hope burning bright, especially when Mercury used the last of his lightning magic to charge Nora up. The powerhouse Huntress managed to snap both of the Minotaur’s horns in two with her hammer swings, and Emerald somehow taunted the creature into throwing its battleax across the open space, lodging the massive weapon into the wall. Yang guessed Em must’ve used her semblance to accomplish that particular feat. She knew how much it sucked to be on the other side of those hallucinations, and almost felt sorry for the beast. Then she realized she was sympathizing with a man-eating Grimm, and shook all empathetic thoughts out of her head.

Mavros and Blake were the last to appear on the scene, but they were ready to rumble the moment they did. Mavros wasted no time in charging the blinded Minotaur, switching his yo-yo to its shield form and sending a photon beam straight for the creature’s chest. Blake simultaneously threw her blade into the throat of the Minotaur, latching onto her Gambol Shroud’s ribbon and circling around the creature two full times. Blake’s hold on the great Grimm wasn’t enough, so Mavros and Weiss came to her aid—Mavros using the string of his yo-yo to wrap around one arm and Weiss using her gravity glyphs to hold down the other.

With the beast set firmly in place, Emerald, Nora, Jin, and Mercury readied themselves for one last all-out attack. Emerald shot, Nora crushed, Jin sliced, and Mercury kicked until the Minotaur fell limp against its restraints. Her friends were so stunned to see the mammoth monster finally fall that they looked like they half expected the black smog of its deteriorating body to lash out and attack them. Yang couldn’t blame them. She’d never been happier to see a Grimm go up in smoke, and she’d merely been sitting on the sidelines.

“So what happens?” Yang asked, glancing back at Cornell with a satisfied smile she couldn’t hide. “When the food of your pets becomes the death of your pets, what happens then?”

Cornell was too tightlipped to reply, but Maurice wasn’t. The hulking man who’d been standing idly by his king’s side stepped forward and commanded Yang’s attention.

“The real fun happens,” Maurice said with calm, dark eyes and a wicked grin as he cracked his gloved knuckles. “I think these fine people deserve an encore. Don’t you? So let’s go have some… fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. Let's ;)


	14. The Worst Invention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience and more importantly your encouragement! The kudos and the comments are greatly appreciated, so thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting my writing!
> 
> P.S. If you like reading with music, I was listening to "Save Me" by BTS on repeat while writing the fight scene this chapter. It might help set the right mood if you do, too! Maybe ;)

Like the inconsiderate man Yang took him for, Maurice yanked Yang up by her metal arm and forced her to her feet. Yang half expected her entire prosthetic to rip off from how rough he was with her.

“Where do you think you’re taking her?” Cornell demanded. The piqued prince rose to his feet as well, but of his own volition.

“To provide your delightful self with more entertainment, your highness. You and your father deserve a better performance than the likes of that, and I intend to give it to you,” Maurice said with a bow much too deep for words much too smarmy.

“Why do you need Yang?” Cornell specified, his voice low and his words slow. Although the lean prince was about one third of Maurice’s size, he stood his ground remarkably well, puffing out his chest and focusing his steely green eyes on the mountain of a man before him.

“Cornell, be seated,” King Mynn said sternly. Cornell briefly hesitated before abandoning his show of bravado and obeying his father’s command. “Avenge my pets for me, Maurice. Make them pay for what they did, and take the girl if you wish.”

Maurice smiled and nodded to his king. Without another word, he pulled Yang by her arm down the steps of the dais and out of the throne room. Argus and Katie followed right behind.

“What? Am I your hostage?” Yang prodded as their hurried footsteps echoed down the long corridor. She desperately wished she could change out of her stilettos and back into some boots. Maneuvering in heels was bad enough, but being dragged in them and forced to powerwalk sucked balls.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Maurice told her, keeping his gaze straight ahead.

“What do you have in mind, sir?” Argus piped up from behind. It was nice to know Yang wasn’t the only one in the dark regarding Maurice’s true intentions.

“Give you three guesses,” Maurice replied.

Argus paused, no doubt debating on whether he actually wanted to guess or not. Judging from Maurice’s tone, Yang thought Argus’s best plan of action would be to shut up. Argus must’ve caught on, too, for he remained silent for the rest of their trek down the lonely, candlelit hallway.

They came to a stop at a large bronze statue that was an identical replica of the Minotaur Grimm, only much, much smaller. Maurice reached up and twisted one of the creature’s horns, making the wall behind the statue lower down and reveal a secret passageway. Yang made a move to enter the new passage, but Maurice’s firm grasp on her arm stopped her before she got very far.

“What? Ladies first?” Yang asked, gesturing for Maurice and Argus to go in front of her.

Maurice offered a tightlipped smile in response. “Not quite.” In moves impossibly quick for a man as muscular as he was, Maurice unholstered one of the many tools adorning his belt and pulled Yang up against his chest, immobilizing her while using his strange invention to inject something into her neck.

“Aggh!” Yang yelped in a mixture of surprise and pain, jumping away from Maurice the moment she felt his hold go slack. “What did you do to me?!” she demanded, reaching for the pained spot on her neck and feeling a cold, metal hexagon bulging out of her skin.

“Don’t be alarmed, sweetheart. It’s a microchip; one that will cut off the inhibitors in your brain that tell you ‘this is bad so I shouldn’t do this,’” Maurice explained casually as he examined the gadget he’d used to install Yang’s new microchip. It had the appearance of a regular gun, only with more doohickeys and thingamabobs attached. 

Yang kept the palm of her human hand pressed against the chip. “If I have no inhibitors, what will that make me do?” she asked, her voice slightly shaky since she already had a pretty good hypothesis. She recognized some of those doohickeys and thingamabobs from her artillery class at Beacon, and they all signified big trouble.

Maurice reholstered the gun that wasn’t really a gun and beamed like Yang had just asked his favorite question. “What’ll it make you do? Why, all sorts of fun stuff.”

The rest of their journey to the labyrinth was a blur for Yang. Her vision faded in and out while a tingling sensation that started in her neck gradually overtook her whole body. It was the same kind of tingle she felt anytime her feet fell asleep. Although she could look down and see her body still walking and functioning, Yang was losing control over it. Part of her was terrified, but even that striking sense of dread was steadily ebbing away just like everything else she felt. The microchip wasn’t just cutting off her inhibitors; it was taking over her mind completely.

By the time Yang regained any kind of consciousness at all, she was standing with Maurice, Katie, and Argus looking up at a blood red sky atop a rocky black crag jutting up in the middle of a wide open area barred by four tall, metal walls. They were the same walls and sky she’d seen in the labyrinth. They’d made it.

Maurice’s voice was what drew her out of the depths of her own mind, though it was more loud and obnoxious than she previously recalled. She then noticed the sleek silver microphone Maurice was speaking into and realized the reason for this irritating alteration.

Yang’s hand snatched the silver mic from Maurice and crushed it in her metal fist, dropping the demolished device to the jagged ground like a piece of trash.

“Excuse you!” Katie shrilled, absolutely shocked that Yang would do such a thing. To be honest, Yang was sort of shocked herself. At least she thought she was… until she realized she wasn’t.

“Your voice is annoying,” Yang said. She didn’t mean it as an insult. She stated it as fact, and her face was as straight as a board as she said it.

Argus and Katie held their breaths and awaited their boss’s retaliation, but all Maurice did was smile.

“I suppose it can be,” Maurice admitted. His obsidian black eyes glanced down at the microchip securely lodged into her neck.

After a beat of silence, Argus stepped forward. “What do we do now, sir?” the anxious underling asked.

“Well, seeing as how that was my only microphone…” Maurice said, removing the cable still attached to his belt and tossing it to ground to join the useless lump of silver, “I guess we’ll just have to wait for them to come to us.”

“Sir, this maze is massive. That could take days…”

“True,” Maurice admitted as he stroked his goatee. “But not if I make it easy.”

Maurice retrieved a device from his belt that looked a lot like a scroll to Yang, only slightly bigger. He pressed a few buttons on the transparent screen and suddenly the ground beneath them started to quake. The tall metal walls of the labyrinth shifted, sinking and sliding until the layout was completely changed.

“Now they only have one path to take, and it leads them straight to us,” Maurice said.

“You should’ve just done that to begin with. Why waste time talking?” Yang pointed out.

Maurice shifted to a different screen on his large scroll-like device without glancing up. “You know, I might’ve made you a tad too… what’s the word…?”

“Bitchy,” Katie offered.

“That’s sexist,” Maurice said with a wag of his finger, still keeping his eyes focused on the oversized scroll.

“Is there a way to tone it down?” Argus asked with a raise of his eyebrow.

Maurice shrugged. “Why would I do that when she hasn’t even had a chance to… thank Mercury for everything he’s done for her.”

Just hearing Mercury’s name triggered something in Yang, physically making her twitch. “Mercury?” she asked, her eyes darting to Maurice.

“Yes, surely there are a few things about him that drive you crazy? How many times has he made you mad?”

Thoughts of the Vytal Festival flashed through her mind—Mercury faking his injury, the consequent deaths of her friends, loss of her arm, and fall of her school due to the negativity he helped spread and the Grimm he lured—all things Mercury had repented for and Yang had come to forgive, but suddenly she didn’t feel so forgiving.

She thought of how frustrating it was to have feelings for someone as aloof as him—someone there one day and gone the next—and how aggravating it had been to drag their relationship out for six long years. She thought of how he knew about her abandonment issues, yet how easily he’d been able to leave her—the day after he told her he loved her no less!

He left her. No goodbye. No way to contact him. He fucking left her.

“He’s dead,” she said.

Before anyone could stop her, Yang jumped from the top of the crag and landed with a shuddering clank on the metal ground below. Her stilettos broke from the impact, so she kicked the defective footwear off and ran. She was off at a decent sprint when she felt a surge of electricity pass through her entire body. She collapsed to the ground panting and clutching at the microchip fastened to her neck with rigid fingers.

“Now, now, sweetheart,” Maurice chided as he calmly lowered the voltage with the same oversized scroll he’d been fiddling with. “I know you want to hurt him, but we have to let him come to you. Otherwise I can’t supervise.”

“What… the HELL?!” Yang screamed, clawing at the chunk of metal embedded in her skin. A second round of volts silenced and stilled her.

When Yang came to this time around, she was back on top of the spiky black crag, but now she was in the arms of Argus. Part of her felt like she should’ve been trying to fight her way free, but a larger part allowed her to remain calm, quiet, and cradled.

With eyes still half hazy from sleep, Yang lifted her head and looked around. Maurice was beside them talking in a loud, obnoxious way again, only this time he wasn’t using a microphone. This time his audience was at the base of their miniature mountain, gazing up with mixed expressions. Some looked concerned. Some looked irked. And one looked downright ready to split their spiky mountain in half.

“Mercury…” Yang whispered, her voice dry and weak. She pushed against Argus who instantly dropped her to her feet. Apparently he didn’t think it wise to mess with Yang in her current state. Maybe Argus was smarter then Yang gave him credit for. “Mercury,” Yang mumbled a bit more audible as she stumbled forward. She took a breath and regained her equilibrium before zoning in on her target below. “I’m going… TO KILL YOU!” she roared as she leapt from the crag once again.

Maurice saw no need to stop her now. He, instead, reached in his pouch and released six sets of heat-seeking, neon light handcuffs. A pair of brightly colored handcuffs found their way around the wrists of Weiss, Blake, Nora, Emerald, Mavros, and Jin before sending all six of them flying back towards the walls surrounding them. The handcuffs were like magnets to the metal and strong enough to keep each of their captives securely in place. No matter how much they struggled no one could break free, therefore no one could interfere with Yang and Mercury as they duked it out.

Mercury held his arms out as Yang plummeted towards him. He seemed like he had every intention of catching her until he noticed the glint in her eyes and the prep for her punch. In a split-second decision, Mercury sidestepped out of the way and let her fist collide with the ground instead of his face.

A ripple of seismic waves shook the metal plates of the maze, unhinging them from the ground and leaving a massive indent from Yang’s crash landing. Mercury’s eyes widened when he saw the size of the devastation she caused, perhaps realizing that she wasn’t fooling around, and saw fit to put a little more distance between them.

“What did you do to her?!” Mercury yelled, briefly glancing up at Maurice before returning his focus to Yang.

“Dear little Mercury… always so quick to point the finger,” Maurice said with a shake of his head. “Maybe if you stopped thinking of what I did and started thinking more about what YOU did, you’d solve this puzzle a lot faster.”

Yang didn’t give him much time for puzzle-solving. She was closing in for more punches and kicks before another word was spoken. The microchip was incredible—it granted Yang the ferocity of her semblance without having to take any damage. She could attack all she wanted without losing energy. It was a phenomenal feeling.

But why was she fighting Mercury again? Part of her just wanted something to hit, another part told her he deserved this, but an even smaller part told her this was wrong. She wanted to hear the third, smallest part out, but the other portions of her brain were overpowering.

Every hit she landed she felt like smiling and crying. Every blow Mercury dodged she felt like grumbling and cheering. She was battling Mercury as well as herself and the searing pain from the internal struggle was threatening to tear her head wide open.

“Yaaaaahhhhh!” Yang yelled as she kicked Mercury’s feet out from under him. Mercury landed with a hard thud against the metal floor, but was quick to roll onto his shoulders and up to his feet in a b-boy move that Yang had to admit was impressive no matter what mindset she was in.

“Yang, I’m not going to fight you!” Mercury yelled as he redirected her attack.

“You’ll have to,” Yang grunted as she thrust her heel into the top of his foot.

Mercury sighed. “Yang… You’re not thinking clearly,” he deadpanned, taking the foot she tried to crush and kicking it into the back of her knee so that she lost her balance and fell forward. “If you’re attacking the metal parts of me, I know you’re not right in the head.”

“That’s right…” Yang said with ragged breaths as she staggered to her feet. “Your legs… aren’t real… When I broke it… It was all a hoax.” She lunged forward for a furry of punches, all of which Mercury avoided, but just barely. “YOU DID SO MANY AWFUL THINGS!” Yang screamed, letting her rage fuel her attacks. “TO ME! TO MY SISTER! TO MY FRIENDS!!” Her words must’ve been getting to Mercury, because once she landed a solid hit to his gut, she managed several more directly after it.

Mercury fell to the ground, spitting out blood. “Why are you saying all of this? That was years ago…” he argued.

“It was! But you keep hurting me! Even now!” Yang yelled, going in to kick him while he was down.

Mercury rolled out of the way and up to his feet in one fluid motion. “What do you mean even now?” he asked.

“You left me!” Yang yelled with so much pain in her voice she didn’t even need to land the next hit. Mercury could already feel it.

He caught her punch with one hand, a shadow cast over his eyes as his human fingers closed around her metal knuckles. “I did,” he gravely admitted. “And I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking how that might affect you…”

“You never do! You’re so selfish!!” Yang cried as she attempted to yank her arm out of Mercury’s grip, but his hold stayed strong.

Mercury spun her into him in a backwards hug so tight it almost felt like a stranglehold. Okay, maybe it was more of a stranglehold than a hug. But considering the circumstances, he didn’t have much choice.

“I know I’m selfish… and I’m trying to be better about that. But one of the biggest reasons I didn’t want you to tag along is because I thought something like this might happen. I thought my uncle might use you against me, because that’s what he does best. He takes the things that people love and he turns them into things they can learn to hate. Those are his favorite kinds of inventions.”

Yang wrestled against his hold, kicking him in his metal shins only to be reminded how ineffective attacks like that were. Yang truly wasn’t thinking clearly, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her mind was going in so many directions it was maddening.

“He thinks I’ll kill you because I value my life over yours,” Mercury continued, grunting as he maintained his steady hold on her. “But for the first time in the history of Remnant, I don’t feel that way. I’d rather I die if it meant you’d live. That’s another reason why I left in the first place.”

Yang’s struggle against Mercury didn’t stop, but it did lessen as unwelcomed tears formed at the corners of her eyes. “You’re lying… It’s another trick,” she whimpered.

“It’s not a trick,” Mercury assured her, half laughing at how ridiculously stubborn she was being. “Now tell me why you’re so angry.”

“You knew,” Yang mumbled as her tears spilled down her cheeks and onto the arm Mercury had wrapped around her neck. “I told you how much my mother leaving bothered me… I confided in you! But you left, too… The same way she did: without a word.”

“Not true. I left three words. On my scroll.”

Yang snarled and convulsed in a way that told Mercury that was NOT the correct answer.

“Okay! You’re right. That was a bad move… but I’m here now. We’re together now,” Mercury amended. “So why are you trying to kill me?”

“I don’t know…” Yang admitted as bigger, hotter tears streamed down her face. “I just… want to.”

Mercury snickered. “Yeah… I guess you’ve always had those kinds of feelings about me, huh?” Yang relaxed, letting her back press into the warmth of his chest. “But I can’t die, remember? Wasn’t there something you had to tell me in person?”

“There was?” Yang asked, honestly confused.

“That’s what you told me when I was fighting that Minotaur.”

He was right. Yang’s mind flashed back to when she stole Katie’s microphone, prompting Mercury to fight with his brain so he would kick that stupid Grimm’s ass and live to hear her tell him something he probably already knew.

“I… I did. But I can’t remember…”

“Try,” Mercury whispered in her ear, lowering the less important hand of his hold to her stomach. The shift wasn’t so he could have a better hold on her—if anything it weakened his grip. It served as a comforting caress to help Yang think. She could feel the warmth of his fingertips through the fabric of her dress as the clouds of her muddled mind began to fade away.

“I… I’m…” Yang began, her human hand finding its way on top of Mercury’s about the same time her memory found its way back to her consciousness. “We,” she amended, “We’re having a baby. Two, actually. Twins.”

From the way Mercury breathed against her cheek, Yang knew he was smirking. “Runs in my family,” he said.

Yang’s eyes traveled to the metal wall Jin and Mavros were bound to. She couldn’t see their faces clearly, but she imagined they had to have been relieved. No child liked seeing his parents fight, especially when they fought the way Yang and Mercury did.

In a white flash of light, a not so distant memory of a conversation Yang had with Mavros came rushing back to her.

~“…He needs you more than anybody.” Her son’s words echoed through her mind. “You’re the light in his darkness, Mom, and he’s not gonna make it out of this fight unless he has you to guide him.”~

A stinging sensation on her neck underneath Mercury’s arm told Yang the microchip had short-circuited. She breathed out a sigh of relief and let what little weight she was still carrying fall against Mercury.

“Some light I turned out to be,” she scoffed.

Mercury released his chokehold, allowing Yang to reach her metal fingers behind his neck and turn her head to see his face. He was bleeding profusely from a gash hidden somewhere in his hair. In fact, there were probably numerous unseen injuries marring his overexerted body, but Yang would’ve never guessed as much from the glow in his eyes or the sweet smile he gave her. The loving kiss was just as misleading.

“You can’t be serious!” Maurice thundered from his peak. Yang was surprised no streaks of lightning accompanied his booming outburst.

Mercury released Yang to protectively stand in front of her, the soft glow of his eyes suddenly sparked into something far more fierce.

“You killed your father and your cousin—your own flesh and blood—but you can’t kill your fucking girlfriend?!” Maurice bellowed. “You really are a piece of work, Mercury—a grade A, pain-in-the-ass piece of work.”

Mercury’s hands balled into fists. “If you wanna see me murder more of my family, there’s an uncle I’m itching to settle a score with,” he said, his voice darker and deeper than Yang thought she’d ever heard it.

Maurice reached into his tool belt with both hands, retrieving two tools that looked like guns, but probably did things way worse than shoot bullets.

“Come and get me, guinea pig,” Maurice dared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUN FACT TIME:
> 
> Mavros is Greek for 'black' and Jin is Chineese for 'gold.' I used Greek since Mercury is derived from the Greek god, Hermes, and I used Chineese since Yang's name is also Chineese :)
> 
> Mavros takes Mercury's last name (keeping with the 'M' names that run in his family) and Jin takes Yang's. So Jin's full name is Jin Xiao Long, which translates to "Gold Little Dragon."
> 
> The more you know ;)


	15. Final Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longest. Chapter. Ever.
> 
> But the good news is I learned how to _italicize!_ I’ll probably go back and edit my previous chapters with italics one day... but in true BTS fashion, “No. Not today. No, no, no. Not today!”

“I want you to go free the others and get out of here,” Mercury said. Yang knew he was speaking to her, but he was looking up at Maurice.

“No. I’m not leaving you. We fight together,” Yang said defiantly.

“Yang, listen!” He finally tore his eyes away from his uncle to grab Yang by her shoulders and face her directly. “This is serious. You’ve already seen the things he can do—what he’s capable of. You’re more of a liability if you stay and fight. I promise, I’ll be better if I fight him on my own.”

Yang brushed his hands off her shoulders. “Tough shit. I came all the way here to save your sorry ass, so you’re getting my help whether you want it or not.”

“You don’t even have your shotgun gauntlets.”

Yang pointed to her automated arm. “ _Hello!_ Permanent shotgun gauntlet locked and loaded!”

“Yang, you don’t understand—”

“No, _you_ don’t understand!” Yang fired back, taking an empowering step forward so she was right in his face. “You’re right, I _have_ seen what this guy can do, and one of the scariest things I’ve seen is the way he makes you tremble just from looking at you. This guy spooks you, Mercury, and that’s okay because everyone is afraid of something. I know you’re trying to be brave, but why face your biggest fear alone when you don’t have to. The best part of having people care about you is when they help you out. So enjoy it, asshole, because chances are it won’t happen again.”

Mercury took a deep inhale through his nose, regarding Yang like his next breath might expel all sorts of frustrated sentiments. That’s why she blinked in surprise when—instead of arguing—he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and the instruction to, “Follow my lead.”

Mercury dashed towards Maurice’s mountain and jumped his way up the black, jagged pillars with Yang hot on his trail. Katie and Argus met them halfway. Argus had his daggers out and ready to tear into Mercury’s flesh, but Mercury was quick to counter every swipe he took with arm blocks almost as fancy as his footwork.

Katie was just as eager to scorch Yang with some of her flaming baton’s fire dust, but Yang knew all about fighting fire with fire and punched through each blast like they were combustible piñatas. Katie switched things up and utilized her second baton’s ice dust as well, but the ice chunks exploded just as beautifully as the fireballs. Yang might not have had her second gauntlet, but she made damn good use of her aura shield for every punch she threw.

“What bothers you more?” Yang asked as she hid her face behind her arm, blocking a direct hit from one of Katie’s batons. “That I’m a better fighter or that I’m a better girlfriend?”

“It bothers me that you’re breathing!” Katie said through gritted teeth, attempting to silence Yang with a fireball to the face. Yang ducked and took advantage of her lower position to land a solid fist in Katie’s stomach. Katie gagged and jumped back before counterattacking with a vicious bombardment of dust-powered pellets.

Yang flipped, ducked, and dodged her way around the fragments of fire and ice, landing in a planked position before charging Katie and tackling the enchantress to the ground. She knocked one of Katie’s batons out of her hand, but the one that remained was all Katie needed to fire a dangerously large blast in Yang’s gut.

Yang yipped in pain, stepping out of an evasive backwards tuck with wobbly legs. She knelt to the ground clutching her stomach and feeling the softness of her bare midriff. The explosive attack had seared a gigantic hole in the front of her dress. Luckily her aura prevented her tummy from suffering a similar fate.

Although unharmed, Yang was in no position for retaliation when Katie closed in with more fire infused attacks. She crossed her arms in front of her face and braced herself for the impact, but Mercury was there in an amazing burst of speed to kick Katie’s flaming baton out of her hand, sending it whipping through the air. He kicked it so hard that the slender weapon wound up with one of its ends wedged deep in the rocky ground of the crag, sticking out of the jagged earth like the most prominent spike on a century-old Beowolf.

Katie eased out of her fighting stance and brought her arms to her sides, far less gung-ho about exchanging blows with Mercury than she was with Yang. They had a silent exchange that spoke volumes more than either one of them probably could have verbally. Even Yang got the gist of what they were saying without actually saying it. It essentially boiled down to Katie feeling betrayed and Mercury not giving a flying fuck about it.

After recovering from whatever stupor Mercury put him in, Argus brought the former flames’ face-off to an end by firing a bronze laser beam from the aviator goggles his twin daggers could change into. Mercury flipped out of the way to avoid the bright beam, landing directly next to Yang as she rose to her feet.

With a glance from him and a nod from her, Mercury and Yang had a silent exchange of their own—one that conveyed they were both okay and ready to take these suckers down.

Together, Yang and Mercury charged forward with Yang taking on Argus and Mercury going after Katie. Katie was still without her batons, so she had to fight Mercury the old fashioned way—something Yang didn’t expect her to be so good at. Then Yang remembered that Mercury and Katie had been sparring partners since childhood. Part of what gave her an edge was her prior knowledge of Mercury’s moves. She read him like an open book, matching him punch for punch and kick for kick, though she was just as predictable to him for the same reason.

Meanwhile, Yang had her hands full dodging eyebeams and ignoring stupid remarks Argus made as he attacked.

“Too bad about all of this. You and I could’ve really had something special, Yang.”

“If your dick was as thick as your skull, I might actually agree with you,” Yang retorted as she ducked under a blazing hot beam.

“Seriously. What does that bastard have that I don’t?” Argus grumbled, adjusting the targeting parameters on the side of his goggles.

Yang could’ve replied to Argus with any number of things, but the most immediate answer she could think of was, _“Me!”_

Had Argus fired at her, she wouldn’t have been able to dodge in time, but because he was still fiddling with his weapon’s settings, Yang took advantage of her opening and knocked him down with a roundhouse kick Mercury had helped her perfect over the years.

Argus groaned in pain from his sprawled position on the ground, growing even louder when Yang shoved her heel in the middle of his goggles and snapped them in two. She wasn’t positive, but she thought she might’ve broken his nose as well. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the blood seeping through his fingers as he writhed around holding his face.

“Leave now, or your balls will be next,” Yang warned, glaring down at the sniveling scumbag.

Argus might have been a self-proclaimed jack-of-all-trades, but one thing his _“trading posts”_ needed to start dealing in was fortitude, for he had absolutely none. The coward hightailed it out of the labyrinth faster than Yang could crack her knuckles.

Yang allowed herself the satisfied smile she got from watching him flee before turning to find Mercury and Katie. They were a good distance higher up the crag than she was, locked not in combat, but in each other’s arms… _kissing!_

Yang gasped, then growled, then rocketed off the ground with so much power she left a small crater in her wake. Mercury shoved Katie away just as Yang was reeling back to strike.

“Calm down! It’s not what you think!”

“Not what I think or not what I _see!?”_ she roared, her metal fist gunning straight for Mercury’s two-timing lips.

Mercury redirected her hand with his before holding his arms up in surrender. “I’m not going to fight you! We already established this!”

“That was before you went and—”

“She was using her semblance!”

“Her _semblance?_ What kind of semblance does _that??_ Does she become more of a ho with every hit she takes?!”

“Confusion!” Mercury hastily replied. Yang felt more inclined to kill him now than she had with the microchip controlling her, and Mercury—being the perceptive person he was—definitely picked up on this. “She can confuse whoever she wants. Kinda like Em, but with no visual illusions. She tricks the mind and makes you think you want to do what she suggests doing.”

Yang’s anger started to fade as she silently wondered if Maurice’s little microchip implant was a product of experimenting with Katie’s semblance. She wondered if Katie had been a victim like Mercury, yet unable to escape either out of fear or out of necessity. It occurred to Yang that Katie might’ve stayed at Maurice’s side all this time because she was more afraid of what a life on her own would be like than she was of her cruel, adoptive father. Before she knew it, Yang’s anger was suddenly replaced with sadness. She suddenly wanted to find Katie and hug her.

“I’m so sorry,” Yang said with welling tears in her eyes as she outstretched her arms and approached her enemy.

“Don’t!” Mercury shouted, throwing himself in the way of Yang’s hug and grabbing her by her shoulders. “Snap out of it, Blondie! She’s doing it to you, too!”

Yang shut her eyes tight and shook her head, focusing on Mercury and ignoring her urge to comfort Katie. “You’re right, what was I thinking?”

“Whatever she wanted you to think,” Mercury said, casting a glare over his shoulder towards the dark enchantress.

“Aw, what’s the matter, Mercury? All she wanted to do was hug and make up,” Katie teased with a coy smile.

“But that’s not all _you_ wanted to do,” Mercury said with angered eyes as he released Yang and squared up with Katie.

Katie gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and small pout of her lips. “Guilty,” she confessed. In moves unexpectedly fast, she brought her batons out from behind her back—she must’ve reclaimed them during Mercury’s… _confusion._

While charging forward, Katie snapped the ends of her batons together to make a staff. She circled the staff around her body as she spun just as elegantly as her weapon, forcing Mercury and Yang to give her space in order to avoid the light blue frost and red-hot flames dancing around her.

In her retreat, Yang punched a particularly sharp rock jutting out of the ground, breaking the tip of it off and launching it in the middle of Katie’s whirlwind of ice and fire. The rock shattered into pieces before it came anywhere close to hitting Katie.

Mercury shot a few rounds of his boot bullets, but they were just as ineffective as Yang’s attack. Katie was going all-out now. Threatening to crush the enemy’s balls wasn’t going to work this time around. Yang would have to be a little more imaginative.

Thinking fast and acting faster, Yang ran towards Mercury. “Give me a leg up!” she said, allowing him just enough time to lace his fingers together and transform his hands into a suitable foothold for her. With more power than she was expecting, Mercury hoisted Yang high into the air. She used the backlash from her built-in shotgun to boost the speed of her descent, making the punch she landed twice as powerful, if not more so. Katie held her staff up to block Yang’s fist, but Yang proved stronger and snapped her elongated weapon in half. The impact forced Katie to fall back, crying out in a mixture of surprise and pain. Before she had time to recuperate, Yang was already on top of her with her metal fingers curled tightly around her petite neck.

“If you ever—EVER—put your filthy lips anywhere close to him again, you might as well be kissing your sorry ass good-bye,” Yang said.

Behind Yang’s back, Katie was reaching a baton up to retaliate with. Mercury saw it in time and successfully shot it out of her hand.

“Give it up, Katie. It’s over,” Mercury said.

Katie looked like she wanted to argue, but her limited air supply wouldn’t permit her to. Having had enough of the woman as it was, Yang punched her smack-dab in the middle of her forehead and conked the beaten enchantress out like a light.

Mercury approached and offered Yang his hand. “You’re pretty scary when you’re jealous,” he noted with an amused smirk as he pulled Yang up to her feet.

“Tch. What makes you think I was jealous?”

Mercury raised his eyebrows and gave Yang a skeptical look.

Yang dropped Mercury’s hand and averted her gaze. “So what? Like you’d be any better…”

“Oh, hands down I’d be better.”

“Says the man who couldn’t stand the thought of me getting married to someone else and crashed the wedding with no real plan.”

“Hey! There was a plan!”

“You didn’t seem very aware of it when you were kissing me farewell…”

“That was part of it!”

 _“ENOUGH!”_ a loud voice boomed overhead, snapping their attention to the top of the crag where Maurice still awaited them. “Are you going to fight _me_ or each other? If it’s the latter case, I wish you’d hurry up and get it over with. I’ll even reinstall your microchip, sweetheart,” he called.

Yang’s eyes narrowed. “You could always come to us!” she shouted back.

Mercury latched onto her human arm. “Blondie, don’t provoke him,” he warned. “He’s plotting something, so we have to be on our guard… To be honest, I’d still prefer it if you left him to me.”

“And _I’d_ prefer it if you’d get over yourself and just accept that I’m doing this with you,” Yang said.

Mercury closed his eyes and shook his head. “I swear you’ll be the death of me.”

“Exactly,” Yang agreed. “So stop acting like this guy is gonna end you when you and I both know that’s my job!”

“I’m _waiting!”_ Maurice bellowed. Yang couldn’t see for sure, but she got the impression he was impatiently tapping his toes.

Mercury and Yang looked to each other in one last silent exchange, expressing feelings of confidence and carefulness before making their way up the rest of the mountain. Yang held back and let Mercury go in for the first hit, following his lead like he previously asked of her.

One of the weapons Maurice had at the ready was the same buzzsaw gun he’d fired at Yang during their confrontation in Patch. He sent three spinning saws flying, but Mercury deflected them with three swift kicks and persisted in closing in on his uncle.

When Mercury was within kicking distance, he did the last thing Yang expected him to do—he jumped back. He was completely on the defensive, blocking buzzsaws and dodging the gooey gobs of spackle Maurice’s second handgun shot at him. Yang watched in terror as the ground the spackle came into contact with fizzed and melted away with a disturbing hissing sound.

Rather than call out for Mercury to watch his back, Yang decided to do it herself. She moved in, being wary not to get her foot caught in one of the newly formed holes in the ground still smoking from the spackle. Just when she was in perfect range of a back attack, Maurice’s hand reached into his tool belt and exchanged his buzzsaw gun for a big beam torque wrench.

He swung at Yang without even looking at her, forcing Yang to suck in her tummy as she jumped out of the way. The torque wrench took on a swordlike appearance, the scale of the oversized tool serving as a type of cross-guard for his grip. Yang wondered if the typically blunt tool was as sharp as the weapon it was emulating, and decided to avoid it like it was.

“You should stay out of family matters,” Maurice chided, shooting a vicious look over his shoulder at Yang before turning his attention back to his nephew. He used his new weapon to take a few swipes at Mercury, but Mercury avoided the wrench blade with even more precision than he did the buzzsaws and spackle spew.

“Hate to break it to you, bub, but I’m the closest thing Mercury has to a family now!” Yang shouted. She could feel the color of her eyes changing from light lilac to crimson red as her emotions empowered her. Yang charged forward, jumping up and over her sizable target in a graceful flip and firing at him from midair.

“Ahhhggggghhhh!” Maurice cried out as he tried too little too late to shield his face from the attack. His aura managed to sustain him from anything alarmingly detrimental, but his cool was officially blown and the look in his black eyes was officially the most bone-chilling thing Yang had ever seen.

“Yang!” Mercury shouted, his hand stretching out as Maurice charged towards her.

Yang ducked down and attempted to sweep his bulky boots out from under him, but Maurice moved fast for a man of his size and was up in the air before Yang knew it. In fact, he stayed up in the air. Yang looked on in bafflement as Maurice floated like a feather, drifting in figure eights with a smirk that must’ve been genetic.

“Wha—?”

“It’s his semblance,” Mercury said, suddenly at Yang’s side. “He can fly.”

 _Great,_ Yang thought to herself. _This guy is a master inventor, specializes in poison, the brains behind one of the biggest kidnapping syndicates Remnant has ever seen, and now he can fly? Talk about an overachiever._

“How do you plan on defeating me if you can’t even reach me?” Maurice taunted. He just loved looking down on them.

“Give me a leg up?” Yang asked, turning to Mercury and hoping he’d comply the same way he had when they took down Katie together. But the determined look in Mercury’s eyes told her he had other plans.

“How ‘bout you give _me_ a leg up?” he suggested.

Yang sighed. “You know you’re not a hero,” she said, cupping her hands together and bending her knees in preparation to lift him.

Mercury just smirked his smirkiest of smirks and stepped into Yang’s hands. They pushed up together and Mercury was launched like a regular rocket into the air. He used blasts from his boots to give himself more altitude until he was even higher than Maurice. Fighting while falling would be the tricky part, but Mercury made it look like he’d done it his whole life. Continuously using his boot bullets to keep himself elevated, Mercury literally fought circles around Maurice, but figuratively, that was not the case.

For whatever traumatic reason, Mercury continued to remain on the defensive. Most of his moves were blocks, counterattacks, or just full-out evasions. He absolutely refused to fight his uncle offensively.

If Mercury wasn’t going to fight more aggressively, Yang was more than happy to do it for him. She took a step back in preparation for a mighty leap, but paused the moment she heard something click underneath the ball of her foot.

“Uh oh…” she said as the cold feel of metal registered in her brain. She was 99.9% positive she’d just stepped on a landmine. No wonder Maurice was so adamant about them coming to him. The entire summit was probably covered in booby-traps.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Maurice called as he playfully spun his tools in his hands while Mercury recovered from his latest evasive maneuver. “You were so keen on meddling in our family affairs. Why so… _stationary_ now?”

He knew.

Of course he knew. Only an idiot would set landmines on a battlefield and forget where he placed them. Mercury didn’t know yet, but it would throw him off his game even more than he already was if he did. Yang needed to play it cool for his sake.

“You should be less concerned about me and more concerned about what my boyfriend’s going to do when your semblance wears out!” Yang bluffed. Did his semblance even have a time limit? Surely it did. If not, that was way too OP.

Maurice smiled. “Oh, I can hardly wait,” he said just as Mercury closed in, finally mustering enough nerve to attack without being attacked first.

“This is between you and me, not her!” Mercury shouted, his foot narrowly missing the tip of Maurice’s nose.

“Then why bring her to such a hazardous place? You never know what sort of awful things you can _step_ into...”

“You’re the one who brought her here!” Mercury screamed, his voice hoarse as he unleashed a flurry of kicks mixed with boot bullets. It was an impressive display of force, but Maurice’s condescending smile remained glued to his face throughout all of it.

Yang needed to think of something fast. Mercury was getting closer, but he still didn’t have the mindset he needed in order to defeat his uncle. And if he found out Yang was one move away from being blown to smithereens, Mercury would be even further from that mindset.

“Mercury! You can do this! Focus!” Yang yelled. Verbal encouragement wasn’t her specialty, but it was all she could do. Perhaps that’s why Maurice saw fit to silence her with a hammer. The tool came spiraling down at amazing speed, but Yang was quick to blast it to bits with the firearm in her metal arm.

Okay, so verbal encouragement was out, unless Yang wanted Maurice to keep throwing down his tools. Then it clicked. Maybe she _did_ want Maurice to keep throwing down his tools. The less weapons he had to fight with, the less Mercury had to worry about. Yang cleared her throat and thought of the most insulting things she could say.

“Maurice! You’re _so_ fat that when the gods said, ‘Let there be light,’ they had to ask you to move out of the way!”

If Maurice heard her, he didn’t act like it. He and Mercury remained wrapped up in their back-and-forth, either oblivious or indifferent to her bad joke. Yang gritted her teeth. She’d have to dig a little deeper and hit a little harder if she wanted to garner any sort of attention from Mercury’s unperturbed uncle.

“I used to think I was the gutsiest girl in Remnant, but then I realized you found a woman brave enough to sleep with you! Too bad Mickarus isn’t around to be exhibit A. I still have a hard time believing it!”

It was a low blow—and had Yang not been so desperate, she would’ve never stooped to say it. But she was, and she did, and not a second after the merciless words left her mouth was Maurice diving down towards her.

Yang didn’t just garner his attention—she garnered herself a death wish. Yang watched with wide eyes and drawn breath as the lines in the face of the madman plummeting closer became fiercer and the glint in his menacing eyes became clearer. He wasn’t going to shoot something at her in hopes that she’d move. He was going to shove her off of the landmine himself and get the satisfaction of killing her with his bare hands.

 _He’ll be caught in the blast, too!_ Yang frantically thought to herself as a means of reassurance. _There’s no way he’d do such a thing. There’s just no way!_

But there was a way, because that’s exactly what he did. Well, what he almost did. Yang winced, hiding her face behind her arms and digging her free foot into the ground so hard the rocky surface cut into her skin as she braced herself for his attack. Only it never came.

“Mom! You’ve got about seven seconds to move!” she heard the familiar voice of her future son call.

Yang opened her eyes to see Maurice arms-length away from her. Although the color was drained out of the crazed man, there was no mistaking how bloodshot his eyes were and how prominent the veins in his head and neck had become. She’d really pissed him off.

When Yang finally managed to tear her eyes away from the fearsome foe frozen in time over her head, she safely removed her foot from the equally frozen landmine. Yang made a move to book it to the other side of the summit, but then she noticed Mercury latching onto Maurice’s collar from behind, void of color and stopped just like everything else.

“Mavros! Jin! Unfreeze Mer—your father!” she cried, unsure which direction to look. The twins weren’t anywhere in eyesight, but she knew they were close.

“We can’t! Too much energy!” one of the twins called out. It sounded like Jin.

“Just grab him and get out of there! We’re losing our hold!” That one was definitely Mavros—too bossy not to be.

Doing as her sons requested, Yang ran as far away from the triggered landmine as possible, but not before prying Mercury’s hand from his uncle’s shirt and taking him with her. He was surprisingly light when frozen in time—almost like a hollow shell of a human. Yang hoped the rest of him would catch up once the time flow returned to normal.

In a bizarre burst of pressure that made Yang’s ears pop, time unfroze. Color bled back into the people and things void of it and a massive explosion went off on the opposite side of the mountaintop.

“Wh-what was that?” Mercury asked, still wrapped in Yang’s arms.

Startled by the weight and warmth that abruptly returned to her boyfriend’s body as well as the loud boom that could’ve been her demise, Yang jumped. Mercury reflexively brought his arms up around her. He had no clue what was going on, but was still determined to protect her. It was instincts like that that made Yang fall even harder for the unknowingly smooth jerk.

“A time semblance happened,” Yang said, sighing in relief and letting her body melt into his. “And your uncle got blown up by his own bomb.”

Yang felt Mercury go tense. “Are you sure?” he asked.

Yang looked in the direction of the blast. The dust had yet to settle so it was difficult to see anything in that general vicinity. “Mercury, I know in your mind he seemed invincible, but no one could survive a bomb like that. I don’t care how powerful his aura was.” Yang tried to sound reassuring, but the wary way Mercury regarded the wreckage made her question what she’d been so sure of mere moments before.

Like something from a nightmare, Maurice’s shadowy silhouette came into view through the dust clouds, walking towards them with heavy footsteps. Was he limping? No he was carrying something—someone. Two someones. He was holding Mavros and Jin like poultry he was ready to decapitate, his giant fists wrapped around the boys’ necks as their little hands clawed at his sausage-like fingers. And he was grinning like he’d already won.

The blast had charred his clothing and fully funkified his hair, giving it the appearance of having suffered a devastating swirly. Upon closer inspection, Yang noticed half his goatee had been singed off as well. The man was a complete lunatic, and he finally looked the part. 

“Are these your little trump cards?” Maurice growled, holding the boys up higher and making their legs dangle like limp noodles. “For some reason, you always manage to pull disappearing acts when these two are around. I might not know _how_ they’re doing, but I know a way to stop it.”

He crunched his fingers deeper into the boys’ throats, making them cry out in synchronized yells of agony.

“Stop!” Yang and Mercury shouted simultaneously, letting go of one another and taking a few quick steps towards Maurice.

Maurice looked amusedly from Yang, Mercury, Mavros, and Jin, clearly enjoying the responses he received. He was a smart man, there was no denying that, but smart enough to piece their connection together—that was a feat even Yang’s closest friends hadn’t been able to accomplish.

“These boys sure look a great deal like you do, guinea pig,” he said with a harrowing glance in Mercury’s direction. “And twins? Don’t see that too often. Only certain bloodlines carry that gene. But this hair color…” He brought Jin’s head up and scrutinized the boy’s hair like he could see right down to the follicles. “It’s a pretty shade of blond. I especially like the silver undertones, which is strange because I typically _dispise_ silver hair.”

 _Damn. Maybe he is smarter than my friends,_ Yang thought. She felt panicked, but remained composed on the surface. She even furrowed her brow questioningly as if she didn’t understand Maurice’s implications.

“What’s your point?” Mercury asked. He, like Yang, was trying his best to play it cool.

“My point,” Maurice said, “is how fitting would it be if I killed your son the way you killed mine? Hell, I’m half tempted to give one of them a poisonous weapon and have them battle to the death right here, right now.”

“Maurice, please. They’re kids,” Mercury pleaded, his voice strained. He didn’t bother denying the accusation of fathering the boys, probably because there was no point. Whether they were Mercury’s sons or not, Maurice was going to hurt them.

Mavros struggled a little harder than Jin, kicking his feet and flailing about. “Age doesn’t matter,” Maurice said decisively, raising Mavros higher than his brother. “You’re old enough to die the day you’re born.”

He made a move like he was going to crush Mavros’s head into the rocky earth, but stopped just short of making contact. He wanted reactions out of Yang and Mercury, and he got them. Mercury and Yang both darted forward to stop him, Yang shrieking in an octave she didn’t even know she was capable of reaching and Mercury diving headfirst, arms outstretched, despite being so far away.

Maurice slammed his heel into the small of Mercury’s back and pinned him down. Had Mercury not activated his aura, Yang was certain his spine would’ve snapped. She lunged forward, prepared to kick Maurice’s leg away, but Maurice stopped her dead in her tracks by holding up his captives like two human shields.

“Stay right their, sweetheart, or I’ll pop their eyeballs right out of their cute little heads,” Maurice warned.

Yang went as still as a statue, though the rage burning behind her bright red eyes was as active as a volcano.

“So many options, I don’t know who to kill first,” Maurice said, glancing from Jin, to Mavros, to Mercury.

“Your fight is with me,” Mercury grunted. “Let them go and fight me.”

Maurice sighed. “Mere killing has lost its thrill for me. It has to be interesting… That’s why I went to such lengths to build this labyrinth in the first place. It’s also why I started searching for better trained snacks for the Grimm to munch on. I wanted to spice things up a bit. So a simple execution is just no good—not for you, guinea pig. You need to suffer. You need a death I can look back on and smile at because I know it was done perfectly.”

“Who said anything about killing me? I said to _fight_ me,” Mercury clarified, his voice taking on that darker tone Maurice brought out in him. “Unless you’re afraid of going one-on-one.”

Yang wasn’t expecting Maurice to give in—not to such a childish antic—but then again she didn’t know the entire history Mercury and Maurice shared. The taunt was enough to turn the smirk on Maurice’s face into an insulted sneer and make him lower the twins until their feet could touch the ground. He slowly uncurled his fingers from around their necks, causing both boys to gasp for air and rush to their would-be mother. Yang welcomed the boys with open arms and hugged them close.

“Take the kids and go!” Mercury yelled, still trapped beneath Maurice’s boot. He was in no position to give orders, and Maurice found it highly entertaining that he even tried.

“I’m not leaving. I—”

“Yang! This is something I have to do on my own! I don’t care if you agree!” Mercury bellowed. The desperation in his voice sent a twinge of pain through Yang’s chest. “I know you want to help, but right now you’ll help me more if I know you’re safe. All of you.”

Before another word was spoken, Maurice launched a contraption from his tool belt over Yang’s head. The metal box grew about two dozen long legs made of lightning bolts and took on the appearance of an enormous electric spider before the legs bent into bars and the bars bent around Yang, Mavros, and Jin.

It wasn’t until the cage was fully formed that Yang even realized what was happening. Whether Mercury wanted them there or not, Maurice apparently did.

“Another feature of my portable detention center: electric caging,” Maurice said proudly. “I’m not sure how I’m going to do it yet, but I know I still need those three if I’m going to make your death absolutely perfect. They’re not going anywhere.”

“Damn it, Maurice!” Mercury shouted, pounding his fists into the ground as he struggled to push himself up. He was to no avail and flopped back down.

“Stop whining, guinea pig,” Maurice chided, delivering one last kick before stepping back and allowing his nephew to get to his feet. “I’m giving you what you want: a fight with just you and me. If anything, you should get back on your knees and _thank_ me!”

Mercury wiped the dirt from his chin on the back of his hand. “Thanks for nothing, asshole.”

With that last sentiment, Mercury stepped into a spinning kick and their battle began. Maurice dodged, groped around his tool belt for something useful, and immediately started firing once his nail gun was drawn. Mercury did a round of air flares, deflecting the nails with a mixture of kicks and wind blasts.

Once enough of the blasts had been shot out of his boots, they circled around Mercury like a personal tornado. Yang recognized the maneuver as one of his favorite attacks—one he saved as a type of finishing move. The fact that he was starting off with a finisher made Yang nervous, but the minute the move proved successful and knocked Maurice flat on his ass, Yang’s nerves lessened.

“Way to go, Merc!” she cheered, jumping up and throwing her metal fist in the air. Jin and Mavros were just as excited and expressive about it.

Maurice was down for a little over a second and remained unsettlingly happy when he rose to his feet. “I don’t think your father taught you that one,” he said with a grin that made his lopsided goatee look even more ridiculous.

“I managed to pick up a few things on my own,” Mercury replied, his face as steely as his eyes.

If there was one thing Yang knew about her boyfriend, it was that banter was one of his favorite parts of fighting. The fact that he took no joy in sassing his uncle made her worry. Mercury didn’t want to talk; he wanted to fight. Yang just hoped that hostile drive was giving him strength and not making him lose his fighting sense.

The pair seemed evenly matched until Maurice added a flamethrower to the mix. Mercury instinctively defended himself with his legs, but the flames were hot enough to burn away the bottom half of his slacks, revealing his mechanical legs—the ones Maurice forced him to have years ago.

Maurice lowered his weapons and paused to take in the sight, somewhat dazed at first, but soon overwhelmed with laughter. “I have to say, I think they’re an improvement. If I didn’t know better, I might be intimidated right now. Those things make you look way more cutthroat than you actually are.”

Mercury looked completely dumbfounded. “You… think this is _funny?_ ”

Maurice let out a few more hearty chuckles before he had enough composure to respond. “I think it’s hysterical! Is that how you met your girlfriend? At a teen amputee meetup? Again, you should be thanking me.”

Mercury used his boot bullets to blast off the ground and put even more power behind his next string of kicks. Maurice blocked the first, but the next set came too quickly for him to do anything about it. Mercury beat his uncle like a sack of meat, landing kick after kick after kick while Maurice continued to laugh manically. The harder Mercury kicked, the crazier the laughter became.

When Maurice finally fell to the ground, the hilarity started to subside. “It’s like I invented you…. How far have you made it thanks to my creation?”

Mercury held the heel of his boot—the barrel of his gun—right above Maurice’s head. Yang was expecting a shot to sound, but Mercury hesitated.

“What’s the matter? Having second thoughts about offing your dear old uncle?” Maurice asked mockingly.

“You’re smiling. Which means you know something I don’t.” Mercury glanced to the electric cage and back to Maurice. “Release them.”

Maurice laughed again, this time as more of a scoff. “We trained you well,” the muscular gearhead mused before reaching in a pouch on the back of his tool belt and retrieving a small remote control. He clicked it twice and suddenly the electric bars of the cage containing Yang, Jin, and Mavros turned into a smoky, purple gas.

“It’s poison!” Yang gasped, taking one last gulp of clean air and placing her hands over the twins’ mouths. The thick gas built and billowed all around them, making Yang lose sight of Mercury and Maurice. She took a few blind steps forward, but was zapped and sent falling backward almost instantly. The electric bars might have turned into gas, but there was still a force field set in place to keep them contained in their little box of death.

Yang tried her best to remain calm. She wanted to ask the twins if they could freeze time, but the shock from the force field had already forced the wind out of her once and she didn’t want to waste another breath of air. Surely if they could help they would help.

The gas was growing so thick Yang could barely see her own hand in front of her. In the not-so-distance she could hear Mercury shouting, undoubtedly fighting Maurice for the remote control.

“Yang! Break the core!!” she heard Mercury yell. “The core of the cage—the part where all the bars were stemming from! Break that!”

 _The core?_ Yang repeated in her head. She spun around, but all she could see were more clouds of purple smoke. Then she realized what Mercury was talking about. The only part of the cage that wasn’t made of electricity or gas was the metal rectangle at the center of the topmost part of the cage. The problem was the cage was much taller than Yang was. Even if she could see the core, she couldn’t reach it. She’d have to shoot at it, which presented yet another problem.

Yang aimed her arm above her head and blindly shot through the purple clouds until she heard the distinct _ping_ of her bullets hitting metal. The bullets from her shotgun gauntlet weren’t enough to take out the core, even if they were infused with dust. Yang would have to try something a bit more risky.

She was starting to feel the dizzying effects of the poison and had to use her human arm to steady her metal one as she took aim yet again, this time with much more precision. She fired one more bullet to verify that she was aiming at the right spot. Once she heard the _ping_ she was searching for, she launched her entire arm at the core. An explosion much larger than she’d been anticipating went off, warming Yang’s face with the heat and knocking her down with the blast.

Once the ringing in her ears died down and she regained her focus, Yang turned on her stomach and crawled with one elbow until she was clear of the dwindling gas clouds. She was relieved when she saw Jin crawling out right behind her, but panicked when she realized Mavros wasn’t.

Letting adrenaline take over, Yang clambered to her feet, took a deep breath, and dashed back into the dispersing purple smoke. She found Mavros lying facedown on the ground and one-handedly pulled him to safety. Literally.

When she finally had a moment to catch her breath, Yang saw Mercury standing over his uncle’s body. She couldn’t tell if Maurice was dead or not, and she wouldn’t get the chance. She passed out whispering Mercury’s name and reaching the one hand she had left out to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uno mas!


	16. New Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta love the double meaning of this chapter, right? :D

Yang’s eyes fluttered open to a beautifully furnished room. The white and blue walls, fancy light fixtures, and sheer canopy drapes over her bed were a dead giveaway. Yang was back at the Schnee estate.

The bright sunlight pouring in through the bay window of her room told her it was somewhere around midday, and the snoozing silver-haired boy hunched over in his chair at the edge of her bed told her the only person who had gotten a proper rest between the two of them was her.

Yang tried to move the arm closest to Mercury and was slightly surprised when she realized all she had was a stub of flesh on that side. She’d forgotten about sacrificing her mechanical limb, but in a flood of memories, everything came rushing back to her.

“The boys!” she shouted out, sitting upright and abruptly waking Mercury. The bags under his eyes weighed down his handsome face, and the paler pigment of his skin made Yang feel like he should’ve been the bedridden one, not her. There were so many people she was worried about, but ignoring the one right in front of her seemed cruel, especially since he’d obliviously been waiting on her to come around.

Yang reached her remaining hand over and caressed Mercury’s drained face, running her thumb over the dark circle underneath his eye.

He held his hand up to hers and relaxed his head into her palm with a heavy sigh. He then gave her fingers a tight squeeze and said, “Everyone is okay. Emerald, Weiss, Blake, Nora, and even Ruby. Mavros and Jin are safe, too. Both in the future,” he paused and glanced down at her stomach, “and in the present.”

“Mavros didn’t get poisoned?” she asked.

Mercury dropped his hand down to rest on the bed’s comforter, but he took Yang’s with it and locked her fingers with his. “He did,” he confirmed. “All three of you did, actually. Mavros took in more of it than you and Jin, but he pulled through like a champ. I think he gets that tenacity from his mother.” He gave Yang a smug look. “Plus,” he added with a small shrug, “Jin told me about these golden flower birthmarks they have that indicate the condition of the other twin. Jin’s was flickering for a minute there, but now it’s back to a solid gold. _Everyone_ is okay. Promise.”

“What about you?”

Mercury blinked in confusion. “Me? I’m right in front of you.”

“And you look like shit,” Yang deadpanned.

Mercury pursed his lips and made a face like he was adding a tally mark to the scoreboard he kept for the two of them in his head.

“Contrary to what I _look_ like, I’m doing…” he took a moment to actually consider his answer, “much better than I have been,” he finally decided on.

“But what happened? How did we get here?”

“An airship,” Mercury said, looking at Yang as if that should’ve been obvious. Yang vaguely recalled Mavros giving a similar answer during his tournament interviews and fought the urge to smile.

“I mean what happened after I passed out?” Yang clarified.

“Ruby made it with the Mistral officers right about that time. They had the whole castle on lockdown. King Mynn and his son were arrested, as were several conspiring noblemen and women in attendance. They arrested Katie and Argus, too. The other servants were taken in for questioning. That’s about as much as I know on the legal side of things.”

“And… Maurice?”

Mercury’s eyes rose to look out the bay window. “It’s finally over. Maurice is gone and I can close that dark chapter of my life.” He turned back to Yang and gave her hand another tight squeeze. “And start a new one,” he added.

Yang closed her eyes and took a deep breath, easing back into the plush pillows behind her back on the exhale. “Thank goodness,” she said.

Mercury offered a smile almost bright enough to offset how utterly exhausted he looked. “You really amaze me sometimes,” he said.

“Because of how straightforward I am?”

“Because of how much you’re willing to risk for the ones you care about.”

Yang smiled and shook her head. “You’re one to talk, Mr. _‘It’s too dangerous. I don’t want to get you involved.’_ Blah, blah, blah. The entire reason you started this mess was because you were worried about Maurice coming after my family and me.”

Mercury scoffed. “Family… now there’s a word I wasn’t expecting to pop up so often in my vocabulary lately.”

“Speaking of,” Yang said, donning a much more serious expression. “How do you feel about… having a family?”

Mercury cocked a confused eyebrow; probably because he’d killed one of the last surviving members of his biological family less than two days ago.

“I mean, how do you feel… about being a father?” Yang quickly amended. “Be honest.”

Mercury let his hand slip from Yang’s as he sat back in his chair. “Honest, huh?” He drummed his fingers against his leg as he quietly contemplated. “Honestly… as shocking as this might seem to you, I never wanted kids. Coming from the childhood I had, I’m sure you can understand.”

Yang nodded. She was studying Mercury like an answer book to a final exam, watching for the subtle hints his words might not be telling her.

“You know how you said I don’t scare easy?” he asked. “Well, the thought of being a father petrifies me.”

Yang bit her bottom lip and dropped her gaze as the reality of the situation started sinking in. _Of course Mercury doesn’t want kids,_ she thought, fighting the urge to slap herself for thinking otherwise up until now. Although the conversation had never come up in the entirety of their relationship, Yang felt like she should’ve known as much.

“But…” he continued, commanding Yang’s undivided attention once more, “after actually meeting them and seeing how smart, gifted, and beautiful they’re gonna be, I’m all sorts of fucked up in the head.” He laughed at the irony of it all. “I’ve never felt so excited and scared at the same time. I’m scared because I don’t want to screw up like my old man did. Yet I’m excited because…” His gunmetal gray eyes met Yang’s and unwaveringly held her gaze. “I never envisioned us having kids, but now that I’m forced to think about it, it makes me happy. For some absurd reason, it makes me really _really_ happy. And I know that’s only because you’re the mother.”

Yang felt stupid for crying, but that didn’t make the tears fall any slower. She laughed and wiped the embarrassing droplets from her cheeks on the back of her hand. She’d heard heightened emotions were just a part of being pregnant, so she’d have to get used to stuff like this.

“You know how you and I always joke about being on that same wavelength?” Yang asked with a sniffle. “Well, that’s how I felt, too. I was so scared at first. I had no intention of having kids either—not now, at least. So when that test turned positive, I went into a sort of shock. But then I realized that you were the father and how much I… how much I love you. Then everything suddenly seemed all right.”

She laughed through her tears again and before she knew it Mercury was in bed next to her, hugging her against his chest with his chin resting on her head. She breathed in his scent, giggling to herself when she recognized the specially made Schnee bath salts he must’ve helped himself to. She nuzzled her face against his soft shirt, wishing she had her other arm so she could hold him tighter.

“For a while there, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to share a moment like this ever again,” Yang admitted.

Yang might not have been able to hold Mercury tighter, but Mercury’s arms more than made up for the slack after that remark. “I’m sorry,” he said, and she could tell he meant it.

“I’ll forgive you on one condition,” she teased, lightly pulling away so she could look him in his eyes. “You have to promise me that every moment we share from this day onwards will be better than the last.”

Mercury gave her his signature smirk. “I mean, that’s kind of a given,” he said.

Yang smiled and yanked at his collar until his mouth was close enough to kiss.

“I promise,” he whispered against her lips before rolling her onto her back so that he was directly on top of her and deepening their leisurely kiss.

“You’re not too tired for this?” Yang asked, running her hand underneath his shirt.

Mercury answered her with a much more passionate kiss, rocking his hips against hers and eliciting an airy sigh from his gratified girlfriend.

_Guess not._

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Yang had been unconscious for a day and a half, so everyone was relieved to see her walking around the mansion in such good health. Yang, on the other hand, was relieved that Mercury didn’t stray from her side. He stuck to her like a shadow, and she didn’t mind in the slightest. Almost losing him made her realize how much he actually meant to her, and now she couldn’t get enough of the smooth-talking quick kicker, even in his most infuriating moments.

Dinner that evening was probably the best dinner Yang had ever had. Not because of the food—though that, too, was beyond spectacular. It was the best because she was surrounded by all of her most precious people, laughing and smiling like they were the happiest people in all of Remnant. Even her dad and uncle put their jobs on hold to come visit the Schnee estate when they heard Yang and her team had returned from their perilous mission in Mistral.

It warmed Yang’s heart to see all of the love around her. Weiss and Neptune were absolutely adorable with her kissing away food from his face and him cutting her steak into bite-size pieces for her. Nora and Ren were equally endearing when Nora regaled Taiyang and Qrow with outlandish exaggerations of past Grimm encounters that Ren corrected at the end of every sentence.

Emerald and Ruby seemed unusually close, and Yang couldn’t help but smile when she noticed the red on her sister’s cheeks matched her skirt perfectly. Yang decided she’d get the particulars on that little development at a later time.

Blake and Sun were as complimentary as ever. Sun was expressive and energetic while Blake was soft-spoken and reserved. They clashed, but in the way that two halves came together to make one whole. Blake was able to reign Sun in and Sun was just as able to coax Blake out. In a way, their relationship was the closest to the kind Yang and Mercury shared in that Yang now saw Mercury as the other half to her whole. She knew she could be her own independent and complete person without him, but she also knew that with him, she could be so much more.

That’s probably why her favorite interaction to watch at the dinner table was the one between Mercury, Mavros, and Jin. The boys were absolutely elated to be hanging out with a younger version of their dad, and if Mercury had truly once been terrified of having children, it didn’t show in the slightest. From the magic tricks he wowed them with to the origami boats he helped the boys turn their napkins into, it was evident Mercury was a natural with kids. Yang was so touched by how sweet the three of them were being, she secretly snapped a picture of the happy trio on her scroll and made it her new background. She knew life wouldn’t always feel this good, but it was moments like these that reminded her to power through and keep living until the next wonderful moment.

By dinner’s end, it was time for Mavros and Jin to say goodbye.

“It’s only for a few months,” Mavros pointed out when Ruby started tearing up. “And we’ll be way cuter the next time you see us! And smaller!”

“I still can’t believe you two have a semblance powerful enough to let you travel through time,” Yang said.

“Well, in the future, there are these devices that enhance a person’s semblance,” Jin said, pointing to what Yang assumed to be an ordinary wristwatch. “This little doodad is what gives us that extra boost we need.”

Mavros gave Weiss a wink. “You might wanna tell Ironwood to get a move on these,” he said.

Weiss’s mouth dropped. “Atlas comes up with tech that can do that?”

 _“The Schnee Dust Company_ comes up with tech that can do that,” Mavros corrected. “So, yeah. Please invent them. It might make things difficult for us later on if you don’t.”

Weiss scoffed, amused at the thought of a nine-year-old bossing her around. “I’ll get right on it,” she said.

The boys made their rounds saying their goodbyes, taking a moment to recover from the backbreaking hugs their aunt Ruby smothered them with.

“Oooooh! You two are too cute! I don’t know how Yang managed to make such angels!” Ruby said.

Yang would’ve interjected if she didn’t partially agree. Yang wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of righteousness and Mercury sure as hell wasn’t anywhere closer to that title than her. How the pair of them managed to make such virtuous, good-natured boys sort of blew her mind.

“It’s in their blood to be awesome,” Taiyang said, walking up to the twins from behind and disheveling their hair with his hands. “On both sides,” he added with a warm smile in Mercury’s direction.

“Thanks, grandpa!” Jin said.

Taiyang winced. “I still don’t feel old enough to be comfortable responding to that…”

Qrow folded his arms across his chest. “Well, you’ve got about 8 months to _get_ comfy, Tai,” he said with a smirk. “Glad I’m not anyone’s grandpa.”

“You’re just as old as I am!” Taiyang argued.

Qrow shrugged and undid the lid of the flask he kept hidden in his jacket. “You’re only as old as you feel.” He took a long swig. “And right now I’m feelin’ _pretty damn good_ .”

Yang stood so that she was between Qrow and her future children. “Boys, don’t let him influence you,” she said in the most motherly tone she was capable of. She was going to have to work on that.

Mavros and Jin just shook their heads and laughed. They laughed a lot like Mercury. Not those half-assed snorts he gave when he was in one of his haughtier moods. They had his trophy laugh—the one that made Yang feel accomplished anytime she actually got one because she knew how honest and rare they were. Mavros and Jin really were the best of Yang and Mercury mixed into one—or two, rather—and she couldn’t wait to meet them again.

“We’ll see you soon,” Yang said after one last hug.

“Oh, before we go, when I turn three, I’m gonna start developing this weird habit of eating blue crayons,” Mavros said. “I grow out of it, though. And you really don’t have to get my stomach pumped. Believe it or not, they’re digestible.”

“And I’m gonna go through a phase where I like wearing dresses,” Jin thought to add. “I do it for practical reasons—it makes it easier to go to the bathroom. But, like Mav, I grow out of it.”

Yang blinked a few times as her mind tried to figure out the best way to respond. “Uh, sure. Okay. Got it.”

The boys smiled and then faced one another as Jin activated the semblance amplifier disguised as a wristwatch. “Let’s go home,” he said, taking his brother’s hands in his.

Their pale yellow auras activated around their bodies before a column of pastel lights came crashing down around them from the vaulted ceiling of the mansion. Yang shielded her eyes from the blinding light, but by the time the glare was gone, so were the boys.

Yang looked at the empty space on the floor and felt a similar emptiness in her heart for some reason. The next thing she felt was Mercury’s hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at him, expecting some profound words of reassurance, but the look he gave her told her exactly what she wanted to hear.

 _They’ll be okay. Just like we’ll be okay. We have each other. We have our friends. We have our family. We_ are _our family. So stop worrying and kiss me already._

So she did.

THE END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they all lived fluffily—I mean happily—ever after ;)
> 
> Special thanks to anawitch for inspiring me to start writing fanfics and special thanks to Golden Mermaid for encouraging me to continue!
> 
> I’m thinking about making one more part to the series. It would be retelling the events from _Gone_ , but from Mercury’s point of view. Comment below if that’s something you would like to see!
> 
> I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday season! Cheers!!

**Author's Note:**

> I made some Merc and Yang fan art to go with my fan fics (^.~)y
> 
> https://sassyunicorn7.deviantart.com/art/Cute-Yang-and-Merc-702248657
> 
> https://sassyunicorn7.deviantart.com/art/Bare-Essentials-702073515
> 
> https://sassyunicorn7.deviantart.com/art/Gauntlets-and-Greaves-702265296


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